


Win a Date with Louis Tomlinson

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Famous Louis, M/M, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton AU, normal harry, take a shot every time someone's breath catches in their chest or their heart skips a beat, terrible terrible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-01-21 17:11:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1557929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disgruntled film star Louis Tomlinson gets in trouble with the media and with his management company, so he is roped into a media stunt to recover his image: Win a Date with Louis Tomlinson!!!! </p><p>Harry Styles, a Tesco baker from Holmes Chapel, is delighted when his best friend Eleanor  wins a date with Louis Tomlinson (!!!!). What nobody (including Louis) sees coming is Louis following her home to Holmes Chapel. What Louis doesn't see coming is having his life changed by the bouncing, baking, enthusiastic idiot called Harry Styles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy, baby's first 1d fic. It's... rough and trope-ridden.  
> I owe everything, a complete debt of gratitude to my Enthusiasts. May they never find this and read this.
> 
> Disclaimer: This is so much fiction. Like obviously I own nothing and know nothing (including but not limited to LA, the entire country of England and all of its grocery stores, and literally anything about Eleanor, genuinely not even sure what color her hair is but I think it might be brown). If you're worried about any anti-Eleanor sentiments from the summary, please do not worry, I am not at all about that in any way. Never ever ever.  
> And that's all I have to say about that.

Louis was pretty sure he knew what was coming before he stepped into the room. The previous night, he had bailed on a scheduled appearance to meet up with a few friends. As much as he was probably going to be genuinely fascinated with whatever function he was supposed to attend, he felt he needed, nay, he _deserved_ , a night off.

He ignored the stares and whispers from cubicle dwellers as he strutted down the hall to his manager’s office. He flung himself into a chair as casually and as fucks-given-zero as possible. The comfort the chair offered, however, was the exact physical manifestation of how uncomfortable Louis was to even be in the room.

His manager, a sad, stressed man with perfectly parted hair called Liam Payne, worked his thumb over the permanent crease between his eyebrows, his Louis Wrinkle, as it was known. There were a few moments in their relationship when Louis considered feeling empathy for the poor sod—the middle man between a reckless little shit and an overbearing management company that, for some strange reason, did not enjoy the stunts Louis pulled in order to maintain his self-given reputation as a reckless little shit in the past year.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Louis said.

“Oh?” Liam replied, finally locking his eyes on Louis.

“I shouldn’t have gone with the orange trousers. They were a right disaster. I really should have listened to you; orange really _isn’t_ the new black.”

“It’s not so much that you wore the orange trousers; it’s that you took them off.” Liam clicked a few times on his computer and threw an image to the large television screen on the wall to his left. It was TMZ’s website. Bright and center was a blurry (yet completely recognizable) photograph of Louis, shirtless, trouser-less, holding onto an unidentified man and kissing him like his life depended on it.

“Well. Shit,” was all Louis managed to say. Because that wasn’t quite what he had expected. Louis considered offering a CPR-spin for the picture but he knew better than to say. He had a vague memory of the kiss, an even vaguer memory of the abs, a very strong memory of confusion, and an even stronger memory of arousal.

“Management is losing its _mind_. We’ve been flooded with phone calls from the press all morning. Zayn is considering suicide. I have grown three gray hairs this morning alone. Would it even _occur to you_ that you are not only going to jeopardize your entire career but also my career, really Louis, think of me, think of my career. I don’t have any other marketable skills and, honestly, neither do you,” Liam snapped.

In his reckless youth (which continued into a reckless adulthood, if you could even consider him a capital-A Adult), Louis had signed an unimaginably binding contract, essentially selling his soul, to his management company in return for the biggest break of a lifetime. At the tender age of 17, he moved to Los Angeles and joined a television series that catapulted him from obscurity to household name-ity.

Nearly ten years later, his ultra conservative management group is still doing everything in its power to present Louis as the squeaky clean vision of every mom’s dreams for their daughter, the quiet British boy next door, the heartthrob with a heart of gold and a throb for the ladies, and every other sickening trope Louis could imagine. Louis really genuinely tried hard (some days) not to be ungrateful. But. He honestly couldn’t figure out how he hadn’t gone mad before now. It was probably because his team, Liam as his manager and his publicist Zayn Malik.

He certainly wouldn’t admit that. He’d go to his grave denying his dependency on those two idiots.

The triumvirate had been undergoing a rough patch lately as the professionals attempted to keep Louis in the same tired career path and Louis attempted to mold himself into a troublemaker.

He had moved away from television seven years ago and was attempting to break into a Serious Film Career. Nothing came his way but shit romantic comedies (modern and period alike) and even shitter action comedies, which Louis diligently phoned in while secretly hoping one day Martin Scorcese or Kathryn Bigelow or David Fincher would phone him for a life changing opportunity.

That’s what he was telling himself. Every change he’d made to himself, he made in the name of marketability. Who he talked to, what he looked like, what he ate. Even what he sounded like, working with a vocal coach for years to morph his accent into something less unique, removing certain parts of his vernacular that weren’t easily understood by American audiences.

Lately he did what he could to try new things and talk to new people. Or just do whatever the fuck he felt like doing. Because on some levels, he wasn’t even sure who he was anymore. 

But that was never a thought he entertained for too long.

“It’s just a photograph, love,” he deflected in an attempt to ignore the bigger issue.

“No. _No_. It’s another piece pulled out the wobbling Jenga tower that is your acting career at this very moment. We had literally just got people to stop talking about the stunt you pulled at the Oscars. You are well fucked.”

“We didn’t actually go that far, unfortunately. It’s been a while for me,” Louis said, stretching out his arms and yawning.

Liam gently knocked his head against his desk. “File that under things I don’t need to hear about.”

Louis turned in his chair at another knock, this time at the door. It was Zayn, who always looked like he had just woken up five minutes ago but still managed to look like an artful disaster.

“I’ve just been on the phone with your agent,” Zayn said by way of greeting the room. “The studio is suddenly feeling hesitant about your ability to carry _You and I._ ”

“What?” Louis said, for the first time feeling even the tiniest amount of real worry that he couldn’t compartmentalize and extinguish. His next shit romcom was the only offer he had gotten for the year. He hated to admit that he needed it.

“They need your image.”

“More than they need my talent? I’ve trained, you know, I’m an actor first. I’ve been to drama school. For at least two _whole years._ ”

“Mildly impressed though they are at all two years of your training, you do actually have to think of yourself in terms of marketability,” said daddy Liam, happy to endlessly discuss responsible things like finances and marketability and residuals and--zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

“Lads. It’s one photograph. And it’s not even a thing, like,” Louis practically pleaded. It wasn’t a thing. It wasn’t. He promised. Totally not a thing. He was drunk and he was horny and he latched onto the first thing he could. Nothing else to it.

Zayn closed the door behind him and sat down in the chair next to him. He exchanged an uncomfortable glance with Liam as he considered his words. “Is it nothing?”

Louis hesitated. “I’m not gay,” Louis said with as much confidence as he could muster. It wasn’t a lot of confidence because Louis wasn’t really sure. He dated who he was told to and slept with who he was told to and generally felt nothing about almost anyone. “I am, though, a disreputable drunk. And that is exactly what you’re witnessing there.”

Liam pursed his lips. “Okay,” he sighed.

“Am I to be relieved that being a disreputable drunk is less detrimental to my career than homosexuality?”

It was Zayn’s turn to sigh. “We’re with you, Louis. We hate the idiotic standards here as much as you do, but we do what we have to do to work.”

“What a steaming pile of bullshit,” Louis snapped, standing up with the intention of leaving.

“Lou. As far as the two of us are concerned, what you get up to in your personal time is exactly no one’s business. But publically, we have to consider the consequences. We have to consider your career. And we have to consider how easily you can get blackballed from anywhere Management has reach,” Liam explained, all practical and responsible and stupid.

“This is much ado about nothing,” Zayn said. “We just have to reinforce that to the studio. You need a little bit of goodwill. I’ve been thinking--”

“I talked to you about how dangerous that was, thinking,” Louis interrupted.

Zayn fought back a smile, but he didn’t fight hard. “And I think I’ve found a solution.” He nodded at Liam, who was already hard at work on his computer and threw another graphic onto the television screen.

Louis’ eyes widened as he digested what was on the screen. “Never in a million fucking years,” he argued fruitlessly.

\--

“Oh. My. _God_ ,” came a shout from the break room of the Middlewich Tesco. “Oh my great giddy aunt. Oh holy _shit_.”

Harry perked up at the expletive. He set down the loaf of bread he was slicing and wandered over to the break room, most conveniently located next to the bakery, which is likely why he and his coworker Eleanor never got any substantial work done.

Eleanor was seated at the employee computer—which technically existed for training purposes and not for internet browsing—gawking at the website onscreen. She was pulling at her hair anxiously and furiously squinting at a long paragraph of impossibly small print.

“You’re scaring the customers away with the high pitch of your screeching,” he said, not entirely convinced she’d actually hear him. She didn’t acknowledge his existence until he finally lumbered over and touched her shoulder.

She turned to him with eyes wider than formerly thought humanly possible. “Harry. _Harry_. HARRY. This is big. This is. Monumentally big.”

“Have the scientists finally cured cancer then?”

She grabbed ahold of his hairnet-covered curly hair and pulled him in close to her face. “Bigger than that.” She turned back to the computer and scrolled up the main graphic on the page.

Big, bubbly, color-changing letters read out “Win A Date With Louis Tomlinson!!!!” Four exclamation marks seemed mildly excessive to Harry. A crinkle-eyed, tight-smiling Louis Tomlinson stared up at him.

Harry always sort of pictured him as a malevolent pixie, a sort of chaotic neutral Peter Pan. He had a reputation as a quiet, mysterious, earnest, good ole chap from merry ole England. But if you paid real attention, he recently seemed far more interested in doing everything he could to ruin the lives of members of the press everywhere, whether it was refusing to appropriately answer (or even pay attention to) interview questions or constantly making rude gestures to paparazzi, which would make publishing their pictures of him a little bit harder.

So that’s what made him reread “Win A Date With Louis Tomlinson!!!!” four or five times before he actually believed someone like Louis Tomlinson!!!! would condescend to such a competition.

“This can’t be real,” he muttered, taking control of the mouse from Eleanor and reading.

“It’s confirmed by every major entertainment magazine. All I have to do is enter. About fourteen thousand times. And I could win a date with Louis Tomlinson.”

Harry mentally added four exclamation points to the end of her sentence. “Are you going to?”

“Of course I’m bloody going to enter,” Eleanor said. “Aren’t you?”

“It says ladies only.” Harry’s eyebrows quirked up, momentarily amused by the idea of winning before quickly destroying that line of thought.

“Whatever, we could trick them. Enter you as Hazza Styles. They announce you win and they can’t take it back.”

Harry laughed. “Why is he doing this?”

“Something to do with charity. For every entry he gets, he donates like a penny to starving children in Ghana,” Eleanor said and then paused. “Pretend I said that like I care about that, because I do care about Louis Tomlinson giving to charity. It’s admirable and I was just in the headspace of a fourteen year old girl just now.”

“Thank god there’s an age minimum,” Harry said, squinting at the fine print that all girls had to be over 18.

“I have to describe in 140 characters or less why I want to go on a date with Louis Tomlinson.”

“He’s fit.”

“Everyone will say he’s fit.”

“Everyone would be telling the truth,” Harry said. “Although I guess there are probably more factors involved in dating beyond, like, fitness. How is anybody supposed to know if they’d want to date Louis Tomlinson four exclamation marks when nobody knows him?”

“If Louis Tomlinson walked into this room right now and said, ‘Harry Styles, I know I don’t know you and you don’t know anything about me other than my fitness, but I sure would like you to go on a date with me,’ would you go with him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come _on_.” Eleanor gave the biggest eye roll known to mankind.

“Okay, okay, I would definitely go on a date with Louis Tomlinson.”

“Me too. But why?”

Harry put his finger to his lips as he considered. He didn’t have any interest in Louis being famous, because that sounded more like a hassle than a perk. “I don’t know. He seems all right, I guess.”

“ _He seems all right, I guess_. Fucking useless. He _seems_ like a prince.”

“He’s played one once, at least.” He stood straight, squeezed her shoulder, and walked for the door. “May the odds be ever in your favor,” he called out to her.

He returned to his abandoned loaf of bread. He halfheartedly sliced perfectly thin slices as his mind drifted to a dangerous place of daydreaming. He wondered what it would be like to Win A Date With Louis Tomlinson!!!! He wondered whether his carefully constructed Prince Charming hair was stiff as cardboard with hairspray. He wondered what the tattoos on his arm were, which were rarely seen from having been airbrushed constantly in films or covered by jackets and long sleeves. He wondered a lot.

Harry was mildly fascinated by him, as most people were. He was a small town success story, and every citizen of Holmes Chapel under the age of 25 had at one point thought if Louis Tomlinson could get out of his own small town in the north of England (Harry could never quite remember which town it was or even if it was small, as everyone else in the world considered Not-London, England to be a small town) and fall into millions of dollars, pool parties full of scantily clad ladies, and casual speaking terms with George Clooney, well, just about anybody could.

Harry had begun to lose hope when no announcement had been made for at least three weeks following the close of the competition. Harry enjoyed how happy the possibility of winning had made Eleanor. Eleanor however always sort of laughed it off, as though it didn’t matter. And it really didn’t seem to matter to her. Harry spent more time thinking about it after the fact, though he didn’t care to admit it. Then they were both convinced it would never happen.

Harry was downright floored when she got a phone call at the store saying she had won the competition and in just two days’ time, a limousine would take her to Heathrow, and she would be flown out to Los Angeles. And now that their dream, against all odds, was a reality, Harry was ashamed to say he was incredibly nervous about the whole thing.

“Well, fuck me,” Harry said softly.

“I’ve tried, but you said you weren’t interested,” Eleanor said, a years old inside joke between the two of them. She was barely containing her excitement after initially exploding quite loud as she took the phone call in the break room that customers complained and a manager came to censure her.

“You actually won a date with Louis Tomlinson four exclamation marks.”

“I prefer to think that Louis Tomlinson won a date with me four exclamation marks,” she said.

“He’s a lucky man.” Harry pecked a kiss on her forehead. “Go home and start thinking about what to pack. I’ll cover for you.”

“This is the second best thing to ever happen to me,” she sighed, falling dramatically into his arms.

“What’s the first?” he asked, although he knew her answer.

“I’m keeping that space open for the future.” She tugged on his hair and winked at him, both actions that incidentally annoyed the hell out of Harry, before dancing back to the break room. He would dutifully return to their townhouse tonight and assist her in making some of the most important decisions of her life, as far as packing was concerned. And he would be perfectly supportive. And he would worry about her, but only silently.

Eleanor texted him constantly on her hours long drive from Holmes Chapel to Heathrow. Radio silence fell as she turned off her phone in an attempt to sleep during her direct flight to Los Angeles. Harry, however, continued to text her stupid things she could read to help ease her nerves once she landed. She had never flown in a plane before and she had never been to America before and she had never had a date with an international celebrity before. So Harry was feeling for her. And he sent her one last idiotic selfie (with his hair twisted into little horns and the most mischievous look he could muster) before going to bed himself.

The next day, she texted him pictures of some Hollywood landmarks she saw before returning to her incredibly swanky hotel room to spend the next five hours stressing over how she was going to look.

“I’m sure anything you wear will be fabulous and I think actually Louis Tomlinson four exclamation marks is contractually obligated to think you’re beautiful anyway,” he said, with his cellphone sitting between his ear and shoulder as he was closing up the bakery at work.

“I’m not going to look good for him, I’m going to look good for me. I want to feel like a pretty pretty princess and I want to wear something for once in my life that isn’t smeared with flour or drenched in the sweat of a working girl.” She sighed audibly as she ruffled through her case. “Also what if there are paparazzi. I don’t want to embarrass him.”

“Why would you care about embarrassing him?” Harry said, reacting immediately to his fear that Louis Tomlinson is a complete twat. “He’s not more special than anyone else.”

Eleanor sighed again, even more exasperated, but this time at Harry. “Wouldn’t you do anything you could to avoid embarrassing a perfect stranger who has done nothing but be kind to you? Honestly, Harry, what has gotten into you?”

Harry’s cheeks flushed with shame. He admitted to himself that had been picking on her in a lame attempt to keep her from becoming too invested in her date with Louis. He wanted her to maintain perspective. Eleanor was too excited about the whole thing for Louis Tomlinson to spend the entire night on his mobile or who knows what else. He wanted her to remember he wasn’t actually going to publically hold a randomized competition to find a girlfriend. If he wanted that sort of thing, Louis would have been on _The Bachelor_ a long time ago.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to get hurt by him, El.”

“ _Haz_ , I am completely in control of the situation and my feelings. I am not a senseless little girl, I’m a sensible lady with half a university education and a date with a very good looking famous man. He’s not going to get in my pants and I’m not going to fall in love. Will you _please_ get ahold of yourself?”

“You’re right. Sorry. I know you’ll have a great time. So long as you don’t puke from your nerves.”

“I’m hanging up now because I’m going to get naked and I feel weird being naked on the phone with you.”

“I hate to break it to you, but I’m naked on the phone with you all the time.” 

“Fuck off. I love you.” She hung up. Harry artfully slid his cellphone from his ear down into his apron pocket, a practiced maneuver that didn’t get any flour or stray dough from his hands on the phone. He would go home later, pop in the first Louis Tomlinson film he could find out of Eleanor’s giant pile of DVDs, and wait anxiously for any text messages from Eleanor or any hits to the Google Alert he had put on her name two days ago. Just in case she needed him.

\--


	2. Chapter 2

Zayn held up various outfit suggestions for his date, all of which Louis made a face at purely on principal. “Girls love you in blue, it brings out your eyes, it tests very well,” Zayn explained. “Also you fucking owe me one, so sit down and take off that ratty band t-shirt before I rip it off you and burn it in your obscenely huge fire place.”

“You own more ratty t-shirts than I do,” Louis argued.

“Yes, but I make them look _good_.”

This was Louis’ favorite kind of Zayn, flustered but still bitchy. The type of Zayn that sounded just a little bit ridiculous saying things like _girls love you in blue_. The type of Zayn he would do anything for. Louis promptly stripped down to his pants and held out his arms expectantly.

“Dress yourself. Lou will be here in ten to do your hair, then we are leaving by 6.45 _on the nose_ , Tomlinson.” Zayn goosed Louis’ ass and left his bedroom.

At precisely 6.44, Louis presented himself to Zayn, who had made himself at home watching television in the living room. Zayn critically inspected Louis, who was wearing jeans without any holes, a crisp button up, and a black blazer. “Yeah, I suppose, that’ll do,” Zayn said, swinging his feet off the coffee table.

“That’ll do? There’s nothing about me that isn’t amazing right now.”

Zayn tugged on the lapel of Louis’ blazer. “Do you still regret the loss of your jean jacket?”

Louis narrowed his eyes and growled as best he could (which was not very well), “Every damn day.”

Zayn rode in the large SUV with Louis to the winner’s hotel. He briefed Louis from his stalker-level file on the girl they had strategically chosen.

“Her name is Eleanor. She’s from Holmes Chapel, Cheshire. She works at Tesco.”

“What, you couldn’t find a girl from Doncaster?” Louis rolled his eyes.

It was the fans from the Nebraskas of the world that loved him hardest and most uncomfortably. They figured, he was sure, that he would drop in some day off a bus, with nothing but a duffle bag and much more metaphorical baggage via tragic backstory, and whisk them away from their boring lives as farm hands or Tesco cashiers or whatever people did in small towns in the twenty-first century. Holmes Chapel, Cheshire sounded very Nebraska indeed.

“We’re not trying to be _that_ obvious. But we could do for a reminder of your image. More British everyman than Hugh Grant.”

“Hugh Grant is a twat.”

“So are you. But he worked for twenty years before anyone found out he was a twat.” Zayn kicked at Louis’ feet.

“Oi, prick, you’re going to scuff my unnaturally clean brand new shoes that clearly belong to me and were not purchased today by a stylist.”

“She’s going to be okay. They all had to put why they wanted to meet you in 140 characters or less and she said, ‘He seems all right.’ So clearly her expectations aren’t very high, which is exactly where I want her.”

Louis flipped Zayn off. But playfully. Mostly.

“She’s got the look, wide-eyed innocence and kindness, exactly what you need. She has no criminal record or any sort of red flags. Her Twitter is normal, quotes and almost funny observations about her life. She doesn’t run a crazy fan Tumblr about you, her ships are standard, she’s respectful and patient with old people on Facebook. We’ve had profilers look at her. I’ve talked to her. She’s signed all _seventeen_ of the Non-Disclosure Agreements the lawyers drew up. She’s harmless. You’ll like her.”

“Wait. She has a boat?”

Zayn and Louis pulled up to the service entrance of the hotel. Louis was to publically bring his winner—Ellen, Erica, Amanda, fuck, what was it—to their car once they had gone over the logistics of the evening and once Zayn was sure she wasn’t going to pass out just being in proximity to Louis.

They walked down the hall to the suite and stopped in front of her door. Zayn held his hand out to stop Louis from knocking. Louis quirked an eyebrow up.

“Thanks,” Zayn said softly, and Louis filled in all the blanks. He didn’t feel like he deserved thanks, and deep down he felt just a little bit for the amount of stress sitting on his friend’s shoulder and how much of that stress (okay, all of that stress) was put there by him. So he didn’t joke or retort or run a hand destructively through Zayn’s carefully constructed hair. He hugged him briefly, letting go with a tight squeeze, and knocked on the door. And he felt like a complete asshole.

A wide-eyed young lady yanked the door open quickly, as though she had been waiting on the other side, but the door was caught in the security chain she had left on the door. “Ah fucking fuck,” she said with surprise and slammed the door quickly. Louis was instantly charmed, which he regretted immediately. She fumbled around on the other side of the door before pulling it hesitantly back open again.

“I wasn’t meant to say fucking fuck to you, I’m so sorry, that’s quite possibly the most embarrassing thing I’ll ever do, at least for the next five minutes, please come in, do you want to come in, I’m not really sure—” she said quickly and loudly, clutching the door until her fingers were white.

“Thanks, love, we’d love to come in,” Louis said calmly, flashing a smile.

She choked out a ‘ha,’ her eyes stuck to his smile for a moment. Louis moved forward a little after exchanging a quick worried glance with Zayn. She led them to a couch and refused to sit until the two of them sat together. She then sat down on an armchair next to them.

“I’m Louis,” he said, extending a hand.

“Yes,” she said, taking it and firmly shaking. He waited patiently for her response. She sat in silence for a few moments. “Oh. Eleanor.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Eleanor. This is Zayn, my publicist.”

“We spoke on the phone,” she said, shaking his hand firmly as well. “Lovely to meet you at last.”

“Zayn’s going to walk us through the plans for the evening. It’s going to be very low key, but I want to make sure you’re not overwhelmed by any of the press trying to stop you and talk to you. Is that okay?” Louis was extraordinarily proud of himself for how professionally he was behaving at that moment and fully expected a generous reward from Zayn and Liam the following day.

Eleanor nodded furiously as Zayn opened his file again and began to read The Itinerary for the evening.

Louis held out his arm for Eleanor once they were assured the car was parked in front of the hotel lobby. She looped her arm in appreciatively and squeezed it a little. Louis gave her a supportive smile, which in turn turned her smile brighter. “Can I tell you a secret,” he said quietly.

“No, I can’t be trusted,” she replied seriously.

Louis was a little surprised. “Is that a joke?”

“Yes,” she said simply and raised a skeptical eyebrow at Louis. Louis chuckled a little. A little.

“I never get used to it, the attention; it scares the hell out of me. But there’s no reason to panic, okay? I’ve got you.” The level of anxiety Louis used to feel about the amount of attention he received had kept him from sleeping regularly for years. He had grown up insisting on being the center of attention, a precocious little shit. But attention from your relatives and teachers and mates at school was literally nothing compared to the attention of _nations_.

Eleanor tugged herself a little closer to him.

They were greeted instantly by photographers, who shouted questions at the two of them. Louis removed his arm from hers and instead placed it low on her back, steering her lightly toward the SUV. He held the door open for her, the cherry on top of his gentlemanly pie.

Eleanor scooted across the car, leaving them plenty of room for seating and no room for intimacy or shoulder draping or light hand holding. Louis was slightly relieved.

“I didn’t actually think I was going to win. I was just doing it for a laugh, you know? I only entered the once, I mean, the statistical _likelihood_. I promise you I’m a completely well-adjusted person,” Eleanor said after the car began to move.

“I’m not at all well-adjusted. This will actually be a first for me, dating a well-adjusted person,” Louis responded, to which Eleanor lifted her eyebrows and flushed her cheeks. Louis removed his foot from his mouth and clarified, “That sounded really heavy, I didn’t mean dating.”

“No, I got you,” Eleanor said, amused. “Although my mum is dying to meet you. She’s told the whole family and she fully expects you for dinner Sunday.”

Louis’ smile strained, as though he didn’t quite believe she was joking. Eleanor’s phone chirped, which he snuck a peek at. It was a text: _Here’s a fake emergency text, in case he’s a creep and you need an out._ Eleanor responded: _Go to bed, Haz._

The first event in the Itinerary was dinner at a small French bistro, where they could sit secluded in a corner and chat privately. They were light on small talk until they had both ordered.

“What was it that you do? For a job, that is,” Louis started.

“Ehm. I work in the bakery at a Tesco’s. You?” Eleanor said out of habit. She didn’t seem to realize it at first.

“Well. I work in sewage.” A smile played on his lips.

Eleanor chuckled. “I bet living in Hollywood is a bit like living your life in waist-deep shit. The metaphorical shit being of the bull persuasion.”

“How apropos,” Louis acknowledged.

“Ooh, oh ho ho, apropos,” Eleanor said, affecting a posh French accent. “Look at me, I’m Lou-ee with my fanc-ee, upper level vocabular-ee.”

Louis tossed a small chunk of bread at her nose. “Joke’s on you, love, I had to Google that word for a film.”

“I feel sort of weird asking you about your life,” she admitted after a few beats.

“I am a literal open book. You may ask me anything; chances are, it’s already been published about me.”

Eleanor considered this for some time. “What is the number one thing you are most enthusiastic about?”

Louis responded quickly and without thought, a practiced answer. “I like to be low key, you know, it doesn’t take a lot to keep me happy. Maybe some time stretched out on a beach with a special someone, sun and drinks and serenity.”

Eleanor hummed, looking down at her glass of wine as she turned it slowly by the stem.

“What?” Louis said as innocently as he could manage.

Eleanor shrugged. “I just hoped you were comfortable enough to be honest.”

Louis was irritated, though he wasn’t sure if it was because she was right and he was fake and he hated that about himself or because he simply didn’t like that she called him out. She didn’t fucking _know him_.

They were served quickly. Eleanor was sort of baffled by the menu, so she allowed Louis to order for her. Louis too was constantly baffled by fancy menus, and usually let Liam order for him. He picked the two fanciest sounding things on the menu, which, now placed in front of them, looked disgusting.

They picked at the food.

“I work with my best friend, Harry,” Eleanor said, transitioning, it seemed, into lighter topics, “he’s sort of like a culinary genius of baked goods. They let him have his own little section, Harry’s Corner, where he tries out all sorts of fancy recipes and sells them for 50p. Technically we’re not supposed to do that kind of thing, but we’ve sort of got the manager addicted to them.”

“That’s brilliant,” Louis said, attempting to find interest as he sniffed hesitantly at what he imagined was food.

“I know it’s stunningly boring.”

“It really is. Stunningly boring. Actively counting down the minutes until we’re no longer talking about a Tesco bakery,” Louis said sarcastically before thinking about the consequences. Eleanor, however, looked game.

“Louis Tomlinson is a cheeky bastard,” she announced. She scooped up a small amount of her couscous with her fork and launched it up and over, into his carefully styled hair.

Louis’ eyes lit up, ready to declare war when the waiter casually slid into view and asked them if they needed anything. Louis looked up at her as couscous fell from his hair to his lap and answered that they were doing excellently.

“Truce,” Eleanor said immediately following the waiter’s exit. “We simply cannot start a food fight in this very _fancy_ restaurant.”

Louis narrowed his eyes. “Oh, I see. You’re on Zayn’s side, not mine.”

“You’re correct, he got to me. I’m to be on my best behavior.” She tapped her nose.

“That _simply_ won’t do,” he said, throwing down his napkin onto his plate. “This food is horrendous, let’s get out of here. I shall corrupt you yet.”

“Thank god,” she breathed, standing up from the table as fast as possible.

This was the kind of restaurant that didn’t have prices next to the items on the menu, so Louis laid out from his wallet what he thought was enough to cover, plus an incredibly generous tip by way of apologizing for bailing.

“Paps out front, let’s take the back.” Louis grabbed her hand, though he wasn’t sure why, and led her through the kitchen, to the shock and scandal of several chefs. Unable to contain their laughter, they burst out the back door, into a side street. They giggled like idiots, though nothing about this was funny or remotely interesting. Louis actively imagined the looks on Liam and Zayn’s faces when they realized he ditched The Itinerary.

The night lay before them, full of promise. That promise mostly consisting of mischief.

\--

 _Go to sleep, Haz_.

Harry had chuckled and did what she asked the previous night, awaking a few hours later to turn off his phone, which was beeping erratically with Google Alerts from people attempting to live blog their date. Harry decided he didn’t care to know what happened until Eleanor told him. Unless the Google Alert was that she was murdered, in which case he would regret turning his phone to silent.

He had missed her last two text messages, arriving at 12 am PST: _Still alive, lovely night, we’re getting married in two weeks._ Twenty minutes later came: _Wanted to clarify because I’m scared you wouldn’t realize I was joking. We got married tonight._

Once he woke, Harry texted her back some choice words about her being a little shit before heading to work. He spent that evening at the pub around the corner from his home. The bartender, a delightful Irish chap with blonde hair that was plastered upwards for at least a mile, was flipping bored-like through television channels.

“Horan,” Harry said _very_ seriously. He plopped down a tray of muffins that weren’t good for sale the following day.

“Styles,” Niall answered gruffly. They shook hands like men. Niall stopped the channel surfing on a picture of Louis Tomlinson and their own girl Eleanor and took a muffin or four.

“Saints alive,” Niall muttered, squinting at the television.

“Switch it,” Harry said instantly as the commentators on the entertainment program began speculating whether Eleanor had slept over at Louis’ house the previous night. They had been spotted very late at a 24 hour Del Taco in proximity to his home.

Niall switched off the television. “Did she stay over?” He got to work pouring Harry his favorite before popping almost an entire muffin into his mouth at once. Harry always sort of worried about the choking hazard, but there was just something flattering about somebody so desperate to eat his food that they’d risk asphyxiation.

“I don’t know.” And he didn’t care. Any pictures he had seen of Eleanor, she had been extraordinarily happy in. And he trusted her text message. After his initial wariness of the situation, he had relaxed into being glad she was enjoying herself. He succeeded in his enthusiasm. Happy Eleanor makes a Happy Harry.

“She didn’t tell you if she slept with him?”

Harry choked into his freshly poured beer. “No, Christ, Niall, she doesn’t text me every time she has sex. Normal people don’t do that.” Harry wiped his mouth. “Also our walls are very thin.”

“You’re right, I s’pose. If I texted you every time I got some, you’d probably go over your monthly limit.”

“Monthly limit. What year is it in your brain? Everybody has unlimited texting here in the future.” Harry rolled his eyes and gulped down half of his pint.

“How are you holding up without her?” Niall peeled back the wrapper of another muffin.

“We are not _that_ co-dependent, Nialler.”

“You’re not actively planning the murder of Louis Tomlinson in the event that he replaces you?”

“I’ve narrowed potential murder weapons down to revolver, candlestick, and lead pipe.”

They chuckled quietly. “When’s she due home?”

“Tomorrow night.” She was on a plane at this moment, in fact. And yeah, okay, _fine_ , Harry did miss her something fierce.

“Ace. Bring her by. I’ve an excellent cure for jet lag.”

“Sure thing.”

Niall was echoing the talk of the town. Everybody was suddenly very rudely interested in every aspect of Eleanor’s life, even though it was nobody’s business at all. Harry was bombarded with questions at the shop all afternoon, after entertainment sites released where Eleanor worked. It was a small (unfortunate that he had to call it small) miracle that nobody had figured out where she lived.

\--


	3. Chapter 3

Sunday morning, Liam looked like he was going to kiss Louis. He had both of his hands around Louis’ face and his face was in close proximity. And he looked gleeful as hell. Louis stuck his tongue out and attempted to lick Liam’s nose. Liam’s head jerked back.

“ _Louis_ ,” Liam chastised, although, he didn’t seem to be mad. “There is literally no way in the world this weekend could have gone better. Thank you. _Thank you_.” He smacked Louis’ cheeks before letting him go.

Louis smirked. “You owe me so many favors.”

“That’s the opposite of true. You’re only doing this to apologize to me in the first place.”

Louis considered this for a moment. “No, I don’t think it works that way. I think you owe me favors.”

Zayn snuck into the office. He stood by the door and crossed his arms. He looked markedly less happy than Liam did. “No word from the studio yet.”

Louis made a face.

“You left the restaurant.”

“It was not a very good restaurant.”

“You abandoned The Itinerary.”

“It was not a very good itinerary.”

“It was an _excellent_ itinerary.”

“I need to feel free, Zayn. The wind in my hair and all that.”

“You were off the grid for almost 18 hours with Eleanor. I’m genuinely surprised you got her to the airport in time.”

“We were having fun!” Louis pouted.

“If you had the wind in your hair, you would lose your mind.”

“ _Well_ , you got me there.” Louis pinched Liam’s cheek and ruffled Zayn’s hair and ran out of Liam’s office as fast as humanly possible just to avoid the consequences.

Back at his home, he tried to focus on literally anything but his weekend. Which was an admittedly excellent weekend. He thought of late night tacos and photobombing tourists at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre yesterday morning. He thought about their hours long debate where she tried (and failed) to convince him to sneak up to the Hollywood sign. He thought he should have told Zayn about his patent refusal to get arrested and how that might have won him extra points. He thought about how she made him stay for pictures and autographs for fans whenever they could.

“Personally,” she had said, “now that I know you--”

“Oh, you know me?”

“Intimately, like a life-long friend, have I known you, I don’t see what the appeal is. But for some reason, these people _like_ you and you have the opportunity to be the second best part of their day by doing something simple like paying attention to them when you’re not on private time.”

“Are we not on private time?” Louis had asked, quite unsure of the answer himself. He had enjoyed her company and their mutual love of mischief enough to spend her last half day in Los Angeles with her.

Eleanor made a knowing glance at him, saving him from acknowledging the truth. As much as he liked Eleanor, he could not deny that she was doing wonders for his image. And worst of all, Louis felt conflicted about it.

“Wait a minute, what’s the first best part of their day?” he had asked, once it dawned on him.

He made the decision so quickly. He wasn’t sure he knew what he was doing, but he knew he didn’t want to spend a lot of time thinking about it, lest he talk himself out of it. He was suddenly negotiating a flight to the airport in Manchester with his assistant over the phone as he frantically tossed a week’s worth of clothing (carefully ignoring all clothing that ‘tested well’) into a case.

“Shall I tell Liam?” Stan asked.

“If you tell Liam, I will sack you.” There was silence. “You won’t be sacked but if you tell Liam, I will make life very particularly miserable for you.”

“So will Liam, if he finds out I lied to him.”

“Nonsense, Liam’s too nice to make anybody’s life miserable but my own. When’s the flight?”

“Four hours. But you would have a three and a half hour layover in Heathrow. I can also set you up with a train. Or you could drive to Holmes Chapel in that time. If you want to risk breaking another car.”

“That’s a fair comment, but in the future, I’d rather you fuck off. Keep the layover. When do I arrive?”

“Four-thirty tomorrow afternoon local.”

Perfect. Just in time to take her to dinner. “Book it,” he said, tossing his phone on his bed after ending the call.

\--

Eleanor had stopped vomiting about an hour ago. Harry had taken Monday off work to spend time hearing about her trip and doing other welcoming type things. He didn’t think she would go straight to sleep upon arriving Sunday night and he certainly didn’t think she’d awaken sweating and vomiting.

He sat next to her bed and flicked through the photos on her camera, which she had attempted to show him an hour ago before falling asleep. There were beautifully framed photographs of LA, which looked just like it did in films. There were none of her date, but she had snuck a few the following day. One was of Louis with a fan outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.

It was candid, Louis engaging and smiling with a little girl who couldn’t have been more than eleven. In the next picture, Louis glanced out the side of his eyes at the camera, the next he was full out scowling at her, the next he was charging her, the next an out of focus shot of the ground.

Harry at this point could imagine the struggle and could practically hear Eleanor shouting, “You’ll never take me alive!” or something suitably dramatic. The three following shots were of Eleanor, who made grumpy faces at the camera.

Harry looked up at the knock on the door downstairs. He half ran down the stairs, unable to remember if he was expecting Niall or had ordered something. When he pulled open the door, he found Louis Tomlinson.

Louis frowned at him for half a second. “Oops,” he muttered, glancing down at a scrap of paper.

“Hi,” Harry said and paused awkwardly. “You’re looking for Eleanor.”

Louis looked up, relieved, eyes locked on Harry’s for a few moments before he remembered to speak. “Yes.”

“Come in,” Harry said, moving out of the doorway. He tried not to stare as Louis walked by. He failed. The fact of the matter was, he severely underestimated how really, really ridiculously good looking Louis Tomlinson was. And also how short he was, not that he was short, he just always looked really tall on film. Louis pulled a rolling suitcase over the threshold after him.

“I’m Eleanor’s roommate.”

“Harry,” Louis supplied, catching Harry’s breath in his chest. The way he said it, _Harreh_ , not quite making it all the way to the y, echoed in his brain a couple of times. “I’m Louis. Hello.”

“Hi.”

“Hello,” Louis said again.

Harry paused, bemused. “Hello.”

Louis seemed to realize then. “Sorry. Just being… thorough.”

“Eleanor is very sick. I’ve only just put her to sleep,” Harry explained eventually after the conversation hadn’t gone anywhere. Neither of them seemed to be able to do words. “Not like _to sleep_ , that sounds like euthanasia, she’s not that sick, I mean, like, she’s sleeping now.”

Louis’ face fell into concern. “Oh, well, shit.”

“She probably caught an American disease. I told her to get inoculated, but she would have none of it,” Harry joked, although immediately slightly regretting it, in the event that Louis Tomlinson!!!! (it hit him again, there he was _in his house_ ) thought that Harry thought that American diseases were a thing and like ten other worries.

“It could have been the Del Taco. Sometimes that stuff has a lengthy incubation period before turning nasty,” Louis said, pulling a half smile that sent a shiver down Harry’s spine.

That was it. He needed to go. “She’d kill me if you saw her like this. Would you like to come back tomorrow?”

Louis pursed his lips obstinately. “She upstairs then?” he said as he left his case behind to climb the narrow staircase.

“Um,” Harry said intelligently, lumbering after him.

Louis rounded the top of the stairs and reached for the first door. Harry snuck around him quickly and braced himself against the door. “Mine,” he said.

Louis narrowed his eyes and Harry thought he could see Louis consider finding a way into his room anyway. He turned instead, passing the bathroom that separated the two rooms and entered the other bedroom.

Eleanor slept with her mouth open as she desperately hugged at a small pillow. Her hair was akin to a haystack. Also the room smelled like vomit, which wafted up from the plastic bin Harry had forgotten to clean up.

Harry started as Louis entered the tiny room. Louis surveyed for a minute. He watched Louis pick up the bin and some discarded tissues and paper towels from the floor. A protest died on Harry’s lips as Louis approached him.

“Trash bags?” he asked softly, to not wake Eleanor.

“Litchen,” Harry answered dumbly. Louis looked confused. “Living room kitchen. They’re just the one room. Litchen.”

Louis snorted. “Okay,” he said in that tone people use to indicate they think the person they’re talking to is a complete nutter.

Harry had no choice but to follow him back down the stairs and into the litchen, where Louis expertly deduced the trash bags lived in the small pantry by the refrigerator.

“Where shall I dump this?”

“Bin outside behind the herb garden. Well. Herb patch.” Louis turned to leave with the bin liners and the soiled bin, but Harry caught his arm. “You don’t have to do this.” Louis stared at their connection with a face Harry couldn’t solve. Harry instead quickly removed his hand and Louis took a moment before he smiled up at Harry. Harry couldn’t tell if it was genuine.

“You will learn very quickly that I never do anything I don’t want to do,” he said before leaving the house. Harry stood paralyzed before the refrigerator, trying to account for the weirdest four minutes of his life just then. And also why Harry wanted to put his hands on Louis constantly, despite his being a complete stranger and here for Eleanor and not at all interested in Harry.

He splashed water on his face, attempting to cool the burn of embarrassment from his cheeks. Louis Tomlinson needed to leave, he decided as Louis Tomlinson returned to the litchen with a clean bin. The thought of cleaning the bin after the vomit was in it had escaped Harry in the moment. It was a good idea to line it with a bag. Louis had smartly used the hose by the herb garden to wash out all of the vomit. He pulled another bag from the pantry and lined the bin as Harry suspected this was an action he had done several times before, vomit disposal.

“If you wanted to--” Harry began weakly.

“What’s for dinner?” Louis said pleasantly. “I am starved and Eleanor says you do kitchen things.”

“I do do kitchen things. I was going to do a chicken thing, Eleanor’s favorite chicken thing,” he mumbled, not sure why he was inviting the guy to dinner.

“Perfect, I love chicken things. How can I help?” he asked, moving forward.

Harry jumped and put his hands on Louis’ shoulders briefly before jerking his hands away. His eyes flicked subconsciously to the refrigerator, to the sign Eleanor had designed:

_Litchen Rules:_

  1. _Do not cook in Harry’s Litchen._



     2-10. _See Rule 1._

“Aha,” Louis said, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Control freak.”

“Eleanor sets things on fire. She can use the microwave as much as she wants.”

Louis nodded. “Get to it then.” He left the litchen to return the bin upstairs.

Harry flicked on his iPod dock the instant Louis left. He put on his cooking playlist and began to quietly sing along to calm himself as he pulled on his cooking headband to pull his hair from his face. He slowly removed his bracelets and rings and deposited them in the little bowl he kept on the counter for them. He retrieved a large pan and poured a generous amount of olive oil in it.

He took several long breaths and forgot as much as he could about who he was and where he was and who was upstairs. There was nothing but him and the work. Do the work.

Harry took his time cooking, though he was upset that he hadn’t set the dough out to rise in enough time to eat the croissants with dinner. He would drizzle chocolate over them for dessert instead. He hopped around, expertly checking each small part of the meal. He completed a grand performance of “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” which always made him feel like an important chef of an important restaurant in Paris, which was ridiculous, but, well, Harry regretted nothing.

He crooned along to the next song, surprised when he heard a voice softly harmonizing with him. He didn’t turn around or acknowledge it, scared Louis might stop. Harry sang confidently, leaving room for Louis to take solos, which Louis took advantage of, but never took the cue to sing louder.

Harry’s third favorite thing was singing, his second favorite was singing with other people. His first favorite was obviously baking, because he, unlike Eleanor, who was ridiculous, didn’t need to leave first open for the future.

The song ended and Harry was sad to lose the sound of Louis’ voice, which was peculiar, but in a good way, not quite raspy or gravelly but with a similar tone, and much higher than he thought it would be. Louis didn’t sing to the next one, so Harry turned and smiled bright and said, “Thank you.” _Why did I say thank you_ , Harry thought _. That is not a normal thing, you do not thank people for singing with you._ “I didn’t know you could sing.”

“Hopefully there are a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Louis said, quirking an eyebrow and clearly accusing Harry of being a super fan or super stalker. He was leaning casually in the doorway, his arms folded up into his chest.

Harry flushed. “I didn’t mean to imply that—I just hadn’t heard—well, I guess there’s no reason I would have known—”

“Harry, please take a breath and know that I was joking.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” he said, his face changing suddenly.

Harry didn’t ever seem to know what was going on inside Louis’ head, which he guessed made sense. Technically you’re not supposed to know what’s going on inside other people’s heads. Eleanor was very expressive and very clear about her feelings. He had known Louis for all of fifteen seconds, so it was irrational to think he could read him. But… he still always felt like Louis was walking on eggshells, carefully guarding himself.

Also this whole thing was just fucking _weird_.

“You’re not intruding. You were brilliant.” However Harry was hit suddenly by a flash of self-consciousness as he stirred the pot of pasta. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long. Although I could hear ‘Isn’t She Lovely’ from upstairs.”

Harry always seemed to sing that one extra loud, with particular gusto. “Perfect.”

“Is that your gimmick, then? The baker with the voice of an angel? Serenading customers with siren songs convincing them to purchase your pastries.”

Harry glazed over the compliment and the thought that Eleanor had obviously talked to Louis about him and that Louis remembered. “I don’t need siren songs to sell my pastries. They’re that good.”

Louis chuckled. “What sort of chicken thing are you making?”

“It’s, um, chicken, stuffed with mozzarella, sort of wrapped in a--” Harry had been illustrating with his hands, a knife waving about sort of dangerously. He turned back to the counter. “Well, you’ll find out.”

They chatted easily as Harry finished cooking. Louis peppered Harry with questions about food and would never stray to anything personal about himself, even if Harry asked him what his favorite dessert was. Harry was lightly uncomfortable doing all of the talking, but the decidedly pleasant look on Louis’ face was enough to keep him talking for hours.

Which is exactly what they did.

Louis and Harry sat down at the folding table and chairs Harry removed from the cupboard under the stairs. Harry waited until Louis took the first bite of the chicken, followed quickly by a forkful of the mashed potatoes. Louis’ face fell and his eyes closed and he made a sort of obscene moan that Harry definitely did not react to _at all_.

“This is possibly the best thing I’ve ever eaten in my entire life.”

Harry beamed and tucked into his own. They ate quietly for a few minutes, Harry thoroughly enjoying one of his better executions of the chicken thing (not that he was aiming to impress anybody or anything) and would occasionally catch Louis staring at him thoughtfully.

“Everything all right, then?” Harry asked the third time he caught Louis staring.

Louis did a kind of shrugging thing and focused on his food for a moment. “How did you and Eleanor meet?”

“I don’t remember exactly. We were very young and one day, I just really wanted to be her friend.” Harry gave his own shrug. “So I latched onto her and followed her around constantly and she couldn’t get rid of me and eventually I wore her down and she started talking to me and has refused to stop talking to me since.”

Louis gave a half-smile. “Tell me about young Harry and young Eleanor.”

“I don’t know.” Harry fiddled with his glass. “We were great big pains in the arse, but with too much charm to actually get into any trouble. Just terrible little shits. She had this awful penchant for pantsing me during public events.”

They shared a laugh. “Absolutely nobody warned me about potential pantsing,” Louis said. “I feel like that should have been included in the background check.”

“Background check?” Harry tried very diligently to not find that information slightly worrying.

“Oh.” Louis stared hard at his hands. “Well, we had to make sure she wasn’t crazy, you know?”

“I guess you weren’t thorough enough, because Eleanor is _absolutely insane.”_ Harry got an encouraging light smile from Louis. “What about you? Well, I mean, I know how you met. But what was it like?”

“The first thing she said to me, I believe, was _fucking fuck_.”

Harry slapped a hand to his forehead. “Why am I not surprised?”

“It was both endearing and alarming.”

It took Louis about three hours and four glasses of wine to loosen up. Harry methodically (and hopefully conspicuously) pulled little tidbits from Louis. He didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, so he asked easy questions about favorite movies and books and music.

“You don’t watch films?” Harry said incredulously.

“It’s weird, like. Sort of trying to make a hobby out of your job, if that makes sense?”

Harry didn’t think that made sense. If he didn’t bake at home, he’d go mad. He loved his job, simple as it was, and no amount of work made baking tiresome.

“It just makes me uncomfortable, like, overly critical. I can’t relax because all I see is form and choices and mistakes and all of those things.”

“You don’t think critical viewing is a good thing?”

“Well, sure, but aren’t movies supposed to be about fun?”

“Not always. They can be just as much about changing your soul and engaging with the world as they can be about spectacle. That’s what art is, don’t you think?” Harry leaned forward earnestly.

Louis pursed his lips and arched his eyebrows, an action Harry has very quickly associated with Louis’ impatience. “The shit I do isn’t art. It’s, well, it’s shit. Romantic bullshit that in no way prepares you for realistic expectations about literally everything. It’s not _real_. Nobody gets to live that way and it’s dangerous pretending otherwise.”

Harry folded his arms into his lap just to give himself a moment to consider what Louis had said. “Escapism is sort of harmless, if you keep everything in perspective. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with, like, fairy tales. You don’t watch silly things just because they make you happy?”

Louis squinted at him. “I liked this better when the interrogation was about pie.”

Harry held up his hands in concession and they transitioned back to pie. They took turns checking on Eleanor, waking her up to hydrate her and check her temperature, which never exceeded the normal temp and relieved Harry that she wasn’t running a fever. She didn’t seem to notice any difference between the two caretakers.

At his most personal, Louis told Harry about growing up in Doncaster with like fifteen sisters or something. His face fell a little after the revelation that he hadn’t seen any of them in person in five years and that this was the closest he’d been to home geographically in that time.

Harry maneuvered a cool transition back to the fact that Louis had never seen _Titanic_. It was so late for Louis, who was weary with travel and confessed to being awake for nearly twenty-two hours now. Harry wouldn’t send him out into the night, so he pushed him to the loveseat and put in the DVD for him before busying himself with replacing the folding chairs and folding table they had used for dinner into the cupboard under the stairs.

“Aren’t you going to watch with me?” Louis practically whined from the loveseat.

Harry looked at the dishes, which had food hardening on them for hours, on the counter.

For Louis Tomlinson did he break one of his cardinal rules of Litchen Etiquette. He would leave the dishes until morning. Because the terrible truth about Louis Tomlinson was that Harry Styles liked him a lot.

\--


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY people are actually reading this and being so kind and encouraging, and I'm so thankful, honored, and ENTHUSIASTIC.

Louis awoke with his head sort of uncomfortably positioned on the bony shoulder of Harry _What’s-His-Last-Name?_ ,who had in turn had draped his arm over him. His heart raced with their proximity. His feet were asleep where they lay propped up on the tiny coffee table. Without moving too much, Louis looked up at the boy’s relaxed face, sleeping with his mouth just a tiny bit open.

Louis shoved down all manner of idiotic thoughts about the boy’s idiotic curly hair looking like a halo and how much Louis was considering staying exactly where he was until his gangly pillow woke up. Instead, he pulled himself gently off the couch, snatched his shoes and his suitcase from where they sat by the staircase, and left.

“What the fuck am I doing?” Louis asked, finally vocalizing the thought he’d had at least twenty times in the last four minutes. He slipped on his shoes and pulled his Public Outing Armor—a maroon beanie and dark sunglasses.

He wasn’t thinking about public transit or cabs as he began walking in the direction of the small bed and breakfast he was due to arrive in yesterday.

He was thinking about the strange lanky boy with a perpetual smile. About how the boy never seemed to stop moving when he was on his feet. About how it took the boy literal years to speak long sentences and about how Louis would be happy to wait as long as necessary to hear them. About how easily and comfortably he flitted around his kitchen—his litchen—multitasking up to five food items at a time. About how driven Louis was to uncharacteristic kindness due to a combination of sleep deprivation and airplane alcohol. And also probably due to the company.

He had definitely cleaned some puke. But that wasn’t anything new.

And then he was definitely lost because he was not at all paying attention to his phone when it chirped directions at him.

It took an hour before Louis arrived at the B&B. He opened the door to the sizable house and found no one waiting. He wandered forward before nearly getting hit in the face by an opening door to his left. From the bathroom stepped a gentleman with a million watt smile.

“Hiya,” he said. “I’m Niall, how can I help you?” He wiped his wet hands on his pants.

“Check in,” Louis said. He checked the confirmation email his assistant sent. “For Danny Zuko.” Usually he traveled under a pseudonym and usually his assistant chose something far more subtle. He wondered if Liam had gotten to his assistant yet. He should probably call someone at some point, if only to confirm he hadn’t been murdered.

“Perfect,” Niall said, rounding the corner to his little desk. He did a ridiculous amount of typing. “Ah, we missed you last night, it seems.”

“Yes,” Louis said and almost gave an explanation until he remembered he didn’t owe anyone shit.

Niall waited a moment for the explanation that never came before nodding and producing a small key. “Right then. This way, Mr. Zuko.”

Niall grabbed Louis’ case without warning and lugged it up the stairs. He brought Louis to a room at the end of the hallway. It was open and floral and simple and homey. Louis hated it.

Niall ran him through the meal schedule before he left. He stopped halfway out the door and turned back. “Also, Mr. Zuko, it gets a little cool here at night. If you happen to get chills and they’re multiplying and you might lose control, give us a ring downstairs and we’ll see what we can do.” He winked and ducked out quickly.

Louis guessed he deserved that.

He threw himself onto the bed and sorted through all of the notifications on his phone for the first time in an embarrassing amount of hours. One hundred thirty-seven text messages, eighty-nine missed calls, and fourteen voicemails. He was in such deep shit. However, he was delighted to see not all of the missed communication were from Zayn, Liam, and his agent. Most of it was from Liam ( _If you are not dead, Louis, I swear to god I may murder you myself!! CALL ME._ ), granted, but hey, not all of it.

He stared at the phone and grappled with his conscience, which ultimately (unfortunately) won out. He pressed Liam’s name to call him and wondered how many rings it would take him to answer, considering it was—Louis used his fingers to count—2 am PST. It was half a ring and Liam sounded perfectly awake.

“Have you been taken?” Liam asked.

“No.”

“Are you just saying that because you have been taken?”

“Nope.”

“Are you in trouble? Have you been hurt? Did someone systematically remove all of your fingers? Are you stranded on a desert island? Have you lost all of your memories? Are you a sleeper agent recently awakened to work for the CIA? Has someone died? Did you murder someone? Have you been a stunningly elaborate delusion I’ve created to torture myself and am I unwittingly housed in a mental institution?”

“No, I’m pretty sure, to all of that, although I stopped listening after the CIA.”

“Then why the fuck haven’t you called me?” Liam exploded.

“Because I knew you were going to be mad at me,” Louis answered honestly.

“Well, thing is, I am more mad _now_ then I would have been if you had called me days ago. So wouldn’t it have been in your best interest to tell me then and not now?”

Louis paused. The thought had veracity, but even after all of this, he still wouldn’t give Liam the satisfaction. “Any word from the studio yet?”

“No word. Where are you?” Liam challenged and Louis should have known better than to attempt to distract the bull.

“Holmes Chapel.”

“Why the fucking hell are you at Holmes Chapel, what the fucking hell is Holmes Chapel, are you finally found Christ, then?”

Louis would have been delighted at the sheer amount of sass Liam was exhibiting for once in his life, if it wasn’t being directed at him. “Holmes Chapel is a village in England. Eleanor lives here.”

The line went quiet for some time. “Eleanor. Okay. You spent last night with Eleanor?”

“Not really. She was very sick. I was there, but she was sleeping.” And I spent all night with her roommate. Her roommate. Harry. _Harry_. “I sort of helped take care of her a little.”

“You… _nursed her back to health_?” Liam asked, as though he could not believe the words were coming out of his mouth. “I can work with this. This is good. The press will eat that up.”

“It’s not like that,” Louis said.

“Then what’s it like?”

Louis hesitated and thought back again to the curly haired boy called Harry, who also quietly inquired after Louis’ intentions.

“I’m sorry Eleanor didn’t call you or something; she’s been sort of out of commission since returning. She didn’t mention you were coming,” Harry had said.

“I didn’t say,” Louis had said, his cheeks would have flushed red then if he wasn’t already well wine warm. “I just… came over here without really thinking about it.”

Louis had struggled then with the why and Harry had graciously not asked him. Harry only nodded thoughtfully. “That’s quite the grand gesture. She will be delighted once she has regained consciousness.”

It certainly was a grand gesture, akin to running through an airport to stop your true love from moving to Australia or holding up a boombox outside of someone’s window. Louis had unwittingly walked himself into one of his own shit films and the thought disgusted him.

Why had he come?

Eleanor had made him feel something. He almost laughed at himself, made him _feel_ something, fuck, he wasn’t a _sociopath_. He liked to delight her, is all, which incidentally wasn’t very hard to do. He had an affection for her. He wanted to be her friend.

That was new. Louis had work friends, sure. When you spend 12-16 hours a day on set with the same people, your whole world becomes about them. Once those few months were up, though, they were gone. Separated to different projects, reconnecting briefly at press events, always swearing to grab lunch and never following through.

This sort of thing didn’t bother Louis—he did it to others just as often as, or more often than, it was done to him.

Sometimes, though, he did go out of his way not to let his work friends in, or so he was told. The most recently frustrated was the romantic lead from his last movie, who spat at him, “Oh, that’s right, Louis Tomlinson doesn’t have _friends_ ,” before slamming his trailer door.

“Hello? Where’d you go?” Liam said, pulling him out of his head.

“Yeah. Sorry. I don’t know.”

“Yeah sorry I don’t know. Okay. Louis—”

“Maybe I’m having an existential crisis.”

“An existential crisis,” Liam repeated carefully.

“Fine. Maybe that’s a bit much.” Louis rolled over dramatically on the bed.

“A bit much.”

“You know what’s helping most? When you repeat the things I say back to me. That doesn’t drive me mad _at all_.”

“Louis, are you safe?”

“Yes.”

“Should I have someone sent up to you? I can get one of your guys up to you by tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t need a bodyguard in fucking _Cheshire._ ”

Liam made an unconvinced sound. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“Probably.”

“Does anybody know you’re there?”

“I think I was made by the leprechaun downstairs.”

“The what?”

“Leprechaun. Although I think he’s taller than me. Maybe it’s the hair giving the illusion of height.”

“Everyone’s taller than you.”

Louis hissed at him.

“We’re not still sore about that, are we?”

“I am a perfectly normal height,” Louis said through gritted teeth.

“Robert Pattinson is still six feet; Americans love six feet.”

“Honestly, I think I dodged a bullet on that one. I don’t look good in glitter.”

Liam chuckled and Louis smiled reluctantly. They passed several moments in silence.

“I haven’t slept for worrying about you,” Liam said quietly. “The only reason I didn’t call the FBI or INTERPOL was Stan swore you were alive. So it was either he was telling the truth or he murdered you in his basement.”

“And Zayn?”

“Zayn loses sleep over no one, this you know,” Liam mumbled as he moved around. Louis suspected he was getting into bed.

“Bed time, Li.”

“Li. I like that. That’s nice. You may call me that,” he said, drifting.

“I’ll be back in a week.”

“Nightmflm,” Liam said.

Louis put his phone down and stretched out comfortably on the bed. He too was asleep in minutes.

\--

Eleanor had pulled herself out of bed to drive Harry to work Tuesday morning before taking herself to the doctor’s office, having furiously denied all of Harry’s offers to do everything for her. The first thing she told him about was the extraordinary and embarrassing dream she had about Louis Tomlinson coming to take care of her the previous night.

“I literally might have shit myself if he was there, witnessing the _Exorcist_ -like stream of puke excreting from my body,” she had said, clearly already feeling better. _That was an image I could have done without reliving_ , he thought to himself.

Harry decided quickly not to tell her, which instantly gave him day-long anxiety over lying. He burned a tray of cookies at work, which he simply _did not do_.

Eleanor showed up at the store at four to talk about her visits, to the doctor and to Los Angeles, since she missed out the whole previous day. She sat at a stool behind the counter, though she was off the clock.

“Food poisoning. Not contagious. But I don’t think I’ll be able to _look_ at food for days.”

“Good thing you came to this giant shop full of food.”

“Speaking of, you left a huge mess in the litchen. I genuinely thought I was still dreaming when I saw it because _Haz does not leave dishes out_.”

“I sort of passed out on the couch,” he said, which was some measure of true. Passed out on the couch next to Louis Tomlinson, who had made it all the way through _Titanic_ and two-thirds of the way through _Batman Begins_ before falling asleep.

He pretended not to feel Louis sneak out in the morning. He thought he wouldn’t be able to do it, keep still considering the tingling sensations in his arms and legs. He wrote them off as the result of sleeping in an awkward position and not at all due to the close proximity to this virtual stranger he couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Are we going to discuss how there were dishes for two people?” Eleanor waggled her eyebrows stupidly.

“Nope. Tell me about Los Angeles,” Harry said, taking a rolling pin and slapping it into a mound of dough with enthusiasm.

“Los Angeles was nice. As a tourist, I suppose. Traffic was a nightmare, so I didn’t really get to do much, you know?”

“What were you most enthusiastic about?”

“This sounds silly, honestly, but Louis. He—I don’t know how to describe what it’s like being with him. Sort of frustrating, I guess, because there are moments when you feel like he’s _on_. Like he’s performing or something. Calculated, charming, autopilot. And then there are moments of authenticity, where he just feels like a person. And those moments are brilliant and fun and stupid and embarrassing and exhilarating. That’s weird that I picked that out, isn’t it? That’s like a weird thing to identify about him.”

“S’not weird,” Harry said, because it’s completely true, he didn’t say. “So you had a good time?”

“I had an _excellent_ time.”

“Tell me literally everything.”

“Fucking fuck,” Eleanor said, looking past him. Harry whipped around and followed her line of sight to Louis Tomlinson, who was removing his sunglasses to squint at some signs. He was approached by their manager Paul, who was stopped in his tracks in a way once he realized who he was speaking to. Paul pointed in the direction of the bakery.

Eleanor nearly collapsed on the floor attempting to flee her stool to greet Louis. She approached the customer counter and said, “Excuse me, sir, how can I assist you?”

“One of everything, please,” Louis said, his face brightening. Authentic, Harry guessed.

“It’s the weirdest thing, I had a dream that you were here last night, and now here you are, what is the statistical fucking likelihood, am I right?”

Louis carefully flicked his eyes to Harry, who shook his head, although maybe he should have been nodding. Either way, he tried to indicate with his face that he was giving Louis a do over and allowing Eleanor to save face. It probably just looked like crazy eyes.

“The statistical fucking likelihood looks about 100%. Because here I am,” Louis said, focusing intently on Eleanor. Harry didn’t think that was how statistics actually worked. He stood by awkwardly until Eleanor rounded on him.

“This is my roommate and co-worker and very best friend Harry,” she said, tugging him forward by the apron.

“Not your _second_ best friend?” Louis asked.

“No, I think you’ve got first pretty well sewn up for the foreseeable future, haven’t you, Haz?”

“That sounds nice,” Harry said. “It’s wonderful to meet you. I assume you’re Louis Tomlinson.”

“The man, the myth, the legend. It’s a _wonderful_ , splendiferous pleasure to finally meet you as well. Eleanor has said nothing but very terrible things about you,” Louis said with a wink.

“I’m just the worst,” Harry agreed.

“Louis Tomlinson, what are you doing here besides scandalizing all of our customers?” Eleanor asked, with an eye on the three people gawking openly at him from the meats section.

Louis moved around the counter and let himself into the baking area. “Well, you weren’t at home because I tried there first. And right around the second wrong Tesco, I realized you didn’t tell me which Tesco you worked at. So at long last I arrived here.”

“I meant in, like, the country.”

“Oh. Well. I needed a vacation,” Louis said carefully. Harry had gotten over looking for ulterior motives last night, but he was still insanely curious.

“Do you want to do something? Harry is off in an hour, we could go get dinner.”

“Delightful,” Louis said, throwing a smile in Harry’s direction. Harry’s own smile widened from pleasant to ecstatic subconsciously, just from having Louis turn one on him. He turned away to attend to his dough and definitely not to cool down his smile.

The hour went fast as Louis attended both Eleanor and Harry with ease. Harry showed him some cupcake frosting techniques. Louis donned a hairnet over his beanie with a fake pout, which quickly turned into a smile as he began to greet customers, most of whom shouted their surprise. Eleanor and Louis were the talk of the town, so if anyone had no idea who Louis was a week ago, they sure did now.

Louis pretended he was working, but he was really just charming customers while Harry ran around and did all the work and Eleanor sat on her stool and laughed. He posed for silly pictures whenever somebody asked, sometimes pulling in Eleanor or Harry.

Eleanor watched pleasantly as Louis and Harry ate dinner at a small, homey restaurant with large portions of good food – “Just like home,” Louis said. They were put in a corner booth. Harry let Eleanor pick a side, and he quickly slid into the opposite side, allowing Louis to sit next to her.

Eleanor snatched Louis’ beanie from him, leaving his hair in a state of duress. In response to Louis’ protests, she tossed the hat to Harry, who caught it and promptly put it on.

“That’s a good look on you,” she said.

“No, no, we can’t lose the curls,” Louis argued. “That’s the moneymaker.”

“Ooh, very accurate,” Eleanor said.

“The curls do bring all the boys to the yard,” Harry said lightly, not looking at Louis. Sometimes it was a game Harry played, trying to learn the best way to casually drop some variation of _I’m gay_ into a casual conversation. Jokes were actually the worst possible way to do it. But in that moment, Harry was nervous and stupid and felt very strongly about letting Louis know that he wasn’t a threat to his potential relationship with Eleanor. He almost followed it with, _And I allow them to come to the yard. Because I’m gay._

Louis sort of shrugged it off with another impassioned plea for the return of his hat, after which Harry relinquished it, to the incessant booing of Eleanor, because he couldn’t stand to see Louis uncomfortable or even jokingly upset.

Dinner was light and fun and full of jokes and stories and the chemistry of three lifelong friends. Harry let the others do most of the talking as he hummed and glowed happily from his side of the booth.

Eleanor dropped her hands around the shoulders of her boys, as she had taken to calling them, and led them to a park a couple of blocks from the restaurant. They squished on a swinging bench made for two and thought whatever silent thoughts were occupying them.

Harry’s were of pleasant comfort, after having worked studiously all evening to rid himself of the anxiety he was feeling about everything. He was thinking about Louis and Eleanor and the strange world where they could be together and be happy.

“I have to tell you that I’m not here for any reason other than I want to be. I want you both to know that before people start whispering and accusing. Because they will,” Louis said quickly and quietly and with a frown.

Eleanor grabbed both of her boys’ hands. Harry carefully watched Louis slowly sink into Eleanor’s touch, because even the most casual displays of affection in the last 24 hours had spooked him.

The thought of being a third wheel occurred to Harry for the first time just then. But Louis peeked over at Harry, behind an oblivious Eleanor, and they traded smiles.

Eleanor planned a surprise trip for Louis the following morning before she had to close at the store later that night. She wouldn’t tell Harry where she was taking Louis on account of Harry’s inability to keep a secret. Louis and Harry had shared a light and somewhat incriminating chuckle.

Harry was surprised to hear the front door close later that Wednesday evening.

“Eleanor? You’re going to be late for work, aren’t you?” Harry called out with his eyes on the oven’s clock.

“You’re telling me,” Louis said, sticking his head around the corner from the hallway. “She drives like a madman. What’s for dinner?”

“Ehm,” Harry said, shifting uncomfortably before holding up a box of macaroni and cheese he had brought home from the store.

“You. _You_ , Harry, Chef Hazza, you are going to make macaroni and cheese from a _box_?” Louis said, positively delighted at the culinary hypocrisy.

“I’m pretty tired. I worked 12 hours today,” Harry said, thoroughly embarrassed.

“I can make box macaroni and box cheese. Stand aside, I insist.”

“No—”

“I _insist_ ,” Louis said, well, almost shouted, and grabbed Harry by the wrists. Harry practiced even breathing as he allowed himself to be led over to the sofa. Louis pulled Harry’s cooking headband from Harry’s head and carefully slid it onto his own. Harry’s heart skipped a beat.

Louis shouted at him every time Harry turned around from half-watching the television to check on the progress of dinner. At the last shout, Harry turned his eyes mockingly wide and he threw a smile to the ceiling.

At long last, Louis arrived at the small couch with two bowls of bread crumb-topped macaroni and cheese.

“I improvised,” he said proudly as he awaited for Harry to take the first bite.

“Delicious,” Harry said.

“Of course it is. Next time, though, you and I will definitely make that chicken thing again,” Louis said. “I could eat it every day for the rest of my life.”

Harry nodded enthusiastically and tried not to focus on _next time_.

“Busy day at work, then?”

“Very busy,” Harry said. “Lots of cakes and cupcakes and muffins and such for this weekend.”

“What’s this weekend?”

“Founder’s Day Festival. Commemorating, you may deduce, the founding of Holmes Chapel.”

“Well, isn’t that delightfully Small Town.”

What it was, was trying to capitalize on the sudden appearance of Louis Tomlinson and the amount of press the small town had gotten because of the contest. Photos of the three of them (almost always with Harry half-cropped out) had surfaced on Twitter and other websites as soon as Louis had shown up at the Tesco. There hadn’t been a Founder’s Day celebration since Harry had been alive, but sure enough, earlier that morning the mayor had announced they were bringing back the tradition this weekend (Founder’s Day was originally in June) and inviting everyone within two hour driving radius.

“It’s a very convenient holiday,” Harry said diplomatically.

“That’s true. But I would have been more flattered if they had just named the damn thing after me. I’ve never had my own festival before.” He smiled deviously.

“Do you want to put a movie on?”

“Definitely not.”

“All right.” A million topics and questions raced through Harry’s brain. He settled on a safe one. “Where did you and Eleanor go this morning?”

“Fuck if I know. I don’t think she did either. She got me up _before_ the asscrack of dawn so we could witness the sunrise and collectively feel inspired about the world and the future of it. Or something like that.”

“Sounds very much like Eleanor.”

“Endearing starts after sunrise. Everything else is just too earnest.” Harry was on the fence trying to decide if Louis was joking when he spoke again. “What’s the thing with enthusiasm? Eleanor. She does this thing where she asks me what I’m enthusiastic about. It was a peculiar word, so I figured it was a thing.”

Harry hesitated as he tried to form his words. Enthusiasm was a close, personal, intimate thing, etc.

“It is, it’s a _thing_ , I guess, that we do. To remind ourselves of the things we like and things that make us happy. And that we’re allowed to feel happy. And that there’s no guilt felt, even in the simplest or stupidest things, if it makes you enthusiastic to be alive, you should take it and live with it. I don’t know if that articulates properly.”

“So, what, you don’t allow yourself to be sad?” Louis said passively, but Harry was able to spot dubiousness.

“No, it’s definitely not that. It’s more remembering the balance? That you are just allowed to be happy as much as you are allowed to be sad. Or maybe it’s not even about happiness or sadness. Finding ways to positively engage with the vast world that surrounds you. If you can. Obviously there are people who live shit lives, and I can’t even speak to their pain. But for me, there are things about life that I like and things that I want to learn and people that I want to know. And as long as I can manage to live and find things I’m enthusiastic about, it’s my responsibility to.”

Louis said nothing, but Harry could all but hear the wheels spinning furiously in his head.

“You think it’s naïve,” Harry guessed.

Louis made a face that didn’t indicate a yes or no. “I think it’s admirable,” he said after a while. “And it sounds difficult.”

“Well,” Harry said, “I suppose it’s not for everyone. We’re not trying to do anything other than recognize things in the world that make us happy or hopeful or enthusiastic and accept that we are allowed to feel or have those things if they’re good for us.”

“So if homicide made you enthusiastic?”

“We would probably become very notorious serial killers, yes, good call.” Harry smiled.

Louis returned it, though his was tighter. Then he lost himself in thought, his eyes locked on Harry’s right shoulder blade.

Harry stared back at him, tracing his eyes along Louis’ unshaven jawline up to his hair, which he had combed and parted on the right today. Harry had a small flashback to the first time he had seen Louis, who had been written in to save a dying legendary American television sitcom. He did save it with wit and charm and an undeniable attraction from young girls. Louis the boy was all earnest smiles and devious smiles and hair long and hanging down to his eyes because everyone wore their hair in their eyes then, Harry shamelessly included.

“I’m,” Louis started then, waking him up. “I don’t.” He closed his eyes and sighed frustrated. “I’m unhappy. Most days. And I don’t know why. And I shouldn’t be. Because I have everything.”

“What’s everything?”

“Money and a perfect career and the unconditional love of strangers and two Emmys and two Golden Globe nominations and the knowledge that there’s nothing in the world to stop me from having all the things I’ve ever wanted,” Louis said lowly. “Is an example of the single most selfish sentence in the history of the world. I’m not supposed to be so unhappy if I’m this privileged.”

“Well. That is a mountain of embarrassingly fortunate things. The fact that you’re self-aware about your privilege is good, I suppose. However. You are _supposed_ _to_ be able to feel like a human being. And all human beings get sad, regardless of their lives, that’s sort of instrumental to being a _person_.”

“What if I don’t remember how to be a person. What if I’ve lost all sense of myself in favor of everything I have to be in order to survive in the life that has been given to me,” spilled out of Louis and Harry suspected, though this may be the first time he vocalized his thoughts, they were thoughts that haunted him regularly.

“What do you mean, everything you have to be?”

Louis’ eyes narrowed. “Nothing about me is real. My clothes, my attitude, my feelings, my fucking accent. I spent two years with a vocal coach learning to be posh or some shit because posh is marketable to American audiences. I’ve done everything. I’ve been managed so closely, I don’t even know who I am. And I used to not care. But.”

Harry remembered back to one of the first full sentences Louis had spoken to him. _You will learn very quickly that I never do anything I don’t want to do_. He supposed that was a lie, and that crushed Harry.

“Even outside of work, you don’t feel a difference?”

“Harold,” Louis snapped. “There is no outside of work.”

“What about this week? Is this part of your work?” Harry pressed.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing this week,” Louis said softly. He pressed his palms into his eyes and stayed silent for minutes. “I like you.”

“I like you,” Harry answered, feeling heat rise to his face. He instantly felt the guilt, because he knew he liked Louis, like _like_ - _liked_ Louis, hard core schoolboy style crushing like. Harry didn’t ever allow himself to pine after straight men, let alone really pine at all. He didn’t allow himself to have crushes because his hopes had always been slaughtered in the past.

And he certainly wasn’t allowed to have a crush on his best friend’s pseudo-boyfriend. He hadn’t actually had the time to ask her about the boyfriend thing yet, and he reminded himself to later.

“And I like Eleanor. There really aren’t people like you at home.”

“Simple Small Town Folk?” Harry mocked with a smile.

“Friends,” Louis said.

Harry’s chest sank for Louis. He reached out and grabbed Louis’ hand. Louis didn’t pull away like Harry expected him to, but instead he closed his eyes.

“Here’s the way I see it,” Harry started, his face pointed at their hands. He dragged his thumb soothingly across them. “You have been told by your fans and by the media and by society at large that you are important and you are worth paying attention to. And you know what? You are important. Because every person on this planet is important. Having your picture taken is cool but it means nothing the second you let it get to your head and let it inform who you are. Famous means nothing. It’s a label that can lift you up just as easily as it can tear you down. You’re always a person first, Lou. It’s _you_.

“You need to be a _person_ now, a good person or a true person or at least consciously making an effort to be good or true, so that when all of those things that are good about your life, those things that embarrass you, when they’re gone, you are still a person. Whole, fulfilled, unfulfilled, whatever. When the label is gone, you have to live with yourself. When the lights are off and nobody else is around, you have to live with yourself. And only you are in control of who that person is going to be. I personally believe you’re a great one, even if you don’t believe it. If you do those things, then you will be a person worthy of being remembered. They’ll remember you anyway, it’s impossible not to remember you. But you want to be remembered for the right reasons. That you were good and appreciative to the people who were good to you.”

Harry looked at Louis, who was crying steadily. “Fuck,” Harry said with a frown.

Louis shook his head quickly and wiped at his face. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I never cry.”

“I cry all the time. It’s very cathartic,” Harry said, completely unable to resist wiping a stray tear from Louis’ face.

Louis let out a weird sob/laugh hybrid. “Did you just wipe a fucking tear from my face?”

“Yeah? I guess I did.”

“People don’t actually do that, I can’t believe—we’ve reduced the situation to a fucking _romantic comedy_ ,” Louis said, who looked like he wasn’t sure if he was mad or amused.

Harry frowned. He meant the things he said and had hoped Louis had meant his too. “I don’t know what you mean,” Harry said honestly.

“Nothing. We should talk about something else. We should talk about you.”

Harry wasn’t happy with the deflection, but he didn’t want to see Louis uncomfortable and, most of all, he didn’t want to see Louis fake it. So he let it go. Because that’s what Harry did.

\--


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is long and it is ALL LOUIS and singing and pining and I regret nothinnnnnnnng.  
> Thanks for reading the thing!

For the second time in a row, Louis woke up wrapped up in Harry. But this time, he stayed.

Harry’s clock read 5.39 am as it beeped insistently at him. Louis was actively thinking that 5.39 am was an odd time and also a terrible time to set an alarm as Harry began to shift beside him. Louis kept his eyes closed as Harry mumbled, “Shit,” and pulled his arms from where they were wrapped around Louis and pull himself slowly out of bed. Harry didn’t turn the lights on, so Louis watched him through squinted eyes as Harry looked around for a change of clothing. Louis imagined he saw something of relief on his face when Harry realized both of them were still fully clothed in what they were wearing the previous night.

Harry left a note scribbled by phone light by Louis and left the room with his change of clothing. Louis rolled over and pressed his face into the pillow.

The bad part of the night had begun with making Harry upset after Louis starting crying. He was irritated at himself, so Louis did what he did best. He deflected and projected and the next thing he knew, he was frustrated with Harry.

“Surely you don’t want to work at a Tesco for the rest of your life.”

“Of course not.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. I could move on to Sainsbury’s.”

“Do you want to open a bakery, your own bakery?”

“That sounds nice.”

“What do you have to do to open a bakery?”

“Buy one, I suppose.”

Louis sighed sharply and Harry raised his eyebrows. “Well, do you want to be on this? What is this?” He gestured at the muted television, a cooking show of some kind.

“Great British Bake Off.”

“Liam could make some calls. Liam knows everyone. We can get you on the British Bake Off of Greatness.”

“I don’t want to be on the Great British Bake Off.”

“Fine. We can get you on a Gordon Ramsay thing.”

Harry tensed up and Louis knew he was pushing too much but he didn’t really care. “I don’t think I want to be on television,” Harry said.

“Okay. But they would eat you up. We open you a bakery instead. Let’s talk to a bank. Liam can call my finance guy, he can give us advice.”

“Lou, I can’t open a bakery.”

“Don’t put yourself down, don’t ever do that.”

“I’m not,” Harry said quietly, frowning.

Louis sees the smallest Louis Wrinkle forming between Harry’s eyes, but it didn’t quite register in him yet to stop badgering Harry.

“It’s a waste to spend the rest of your life at a shop. You have talent and you need to back it up with ambition.”

“It’s not a waste. I’m happy there.”

“You’re trying to convince yourself that you’re content, but you’re not content. You’re complacent,” Louis snapped.

Harry’s eyes were closed, his fists were balled, and his chest rose and fell quickly. But he said nothing. And that’s when it registered with Louis.

“Haz,” he started when his phone rang. It was Liam, speak of the devil. He hesitated.

“Take it,” Harry said, shifting away from him.

Louis walked outside. “Hey.”

“We’re both here,” Liam said.

“Hey, babe,” Zayn chimed in.

“What’s up?” Louis said, most of his mind back with Harry.

“Everybody and their grandmother wants to interview Eleanor,” Zayn said.

“Why?”

“Because we all want to know about the girl Louis Tomlinson flew half-way around the world to be with.”

“I don’t think she’d be comfortable with that.”

“Neither do I. I’ve already spoken with her. She’s fine, she’s just been no commenting the paps.”

Louis stiffened. “What paps?”

“The ones that hang outside her store.”

“Louis, calm down,” Liam said quickly, somehow sensing Louis’ blood had begun boiling. “This is actually a good news call.” Louis pictured the dirty look Liam threw Zayn.

“The studio?”

“Yes, the studio are coming around. But.” Liam hesitated.

“We have been brought a different opportunity for you by your agent,” Zayn said for him.

“Why didn’t he call me first?” Louis said, irritated.

“Because this is big and different and it changes the whole game,” Liam answered.

“Stop teasing me and tell me what the fuck it is.”

“Broadway revival of _Cabaret._ ”

“Cliff?” Louis said. Romantic lead, sure, but with plenty of good songs and if the Sally was good—

“Master of Ceremonies, babe,” Zayn said.

“No shit.”

“Yes shit,” Liam contradicted awkwardly.

“This is the change you’ve been waiting for,” Zayn said.

“But it conflicts with _You and I._ ”

“And literally the whole image we’ve spent the last three weeks trying to salvage.”

“Fuck the image,” Louis all but shouted. “I want to be the Emcee!”

“Musical theatre isn’t very sexy,” Liam said.

“Liam’s never seen _Cabaret_ ,” Zayn argued.

“What? Girls love a triple threat,” Louis said. “Probably.”

“You would have to learn to dance.”

“I can dance.”

“Shuffling left and right while pumping your arms a bit doesn’t count as dancing.”

“I will learn to dance.”

“Louis. This, um. This could end poorly,” Liam said.

“What did Management say when you told them?”

“I didn’t.” Liam paused.

“It’s okay,” Zayn muttered quietly to Liam.

“They’re going to say no. And I want you to do it if you want to do it and if I get fired, then I get fired,” Liam breathed out quickly.

Louis’ stomach did an unexpected flip-flop. Well, not that anyone ever expects stomach flip-flops, really. “Well, shit, Li.”

“Look, Louis. We haven’t been hearing you and I’m sorry,” Zayn said. “We’re… going to do a better job for you.”

“This bigger conversation needs to happen in person,” Liam said gently. “The audition is at the end of next month. I can get a choreographer and a vocal coach up to you there.”

“No, I’ll be home soon,” Louis said, though he wasn’t sure when soon was, if he even wanted it to come at all. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Are you still doing all right?”

“Yeah. It’s good here. I’m enthusiastic,” he said because it was true.

“Well, as long as you’re _enthusiastic_ ,” Zayn mocked and hung up the phone.

Louis opened the door and found Harry standing at it, startled.

“Pub?” he asked.

“Pub,” Louis agreed.

That little shit from the bed and breakfast was also the bartender at this shit little pub Harry dragged him to. He also happened to be one of Harry’s friends.

“Horan,” Harry said seriously and shook Niall’s hand.

“Styles,” Niall said. He turned to Louis and shook his hand too. “Danny.”

“Sandy,” Louis replied. Niall passed Louis a pint without bothering to ask him what he wanted.

“This one’s called Greased Lightning,” he said with a wink. “And thus my repertoire of _Grease_ jokes is thankfully depleted.”

Harry quirked a curious eyebrow but said nothing because he hadn’t said anything in the last twenty minutes.

“Look, I’m sorry if I said—”

“Don’t think about it, it’s fine,” Harry interrupted and shot back two dodgy looking shots. “Eleanor will be here shortly. Grab a booth.”

Louis nodded and took his pint to an empty booth in a tucked away corner. Harry stayed at the bar, laughing with Niall and whispering into Niall’s ear and kissing Niall’s cheek and other irritating actions. That’s where Harry stayed until long after Eleanor arrived.

“He told me about that thing of yours today, the enthusiasm thing.”

“That’s 100% Harry Styles. I try my best, but our boy really is the architect,” Eleanor answered fondly.

“You don’t think it’s a little dangerous? Or at least trying to avoid your problems in favor of just being happy?” Louis was finally able to articulate one of his main concerns.

“He’s not avoiding his problems; he’s just choosing not to drown in them like he used to.”

That gave Louis pause. “What’s the story there?”

“Harry had a comfortable childhood. Big house, lots of money, loving parents, wise butler. But one night when he went to the theatre with his parents, he got so scared of the play that they left. And his parents were mugged and murdered in an alleyway behind the theatre and he grew up alone and angry at the world before he decided very recently to try to make it a better place.”

“That explains a lot.” Louis nodded deeply.

“Explains what?”

“The deep voice, all that black clothing, disappearing into the night when a bat symbol shines in the sky.”

“Okay, so, we’re both full of shit,” Eleanor laughed.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“It’s something Harry should tell. But really he was just very angry all the time as a kid. Cynical. World’s most jaded 16-year-old. And he didn’t have any real reason to be. I see your face, Lou, I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. He just didn’t think he deserved anything he wanted or to feel like people could do more than disappoint him--And here he comes, so be cool.”

Harry crashed into their table, Niall following closely behind, leaving the bar unattended.

“Nialler here says that ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ isn’t capable of creating a group sing anywhere any time,” he practically shouted.

“What?” Eleanor and Louis said.

“Niall is telling me that nobody would join me if I started singing it _right now_ which is incidentally bullshit because everyone knows and loves that song and if they don’t know it and love it then they are under the age of seven and-slash-or cannot be trusted.”

Niall smiled the most devious smile at them and discreetly shook his head.

Louis was more than happy to take the hint. “I’m with the Irishman. None of these people would sing with you.”

“Fine,” Harry said with a brilliant smile and precariously climbed on top of the table to burst into the opening notes of the song.

“Unfuckingbelievable, I can’t believe he’s actually doing it,” Niall said, shoving Louis aside and sliding in next to him.

All 23 other people in the pub (Louis counted) had their eyes glued to the idiot on the table by the time he deftly worked out, “ _Any way the wind blows, doesn’t really matter to me, to me.”_

And all 23 people said nothing. Harry began to lose confidence, which pissed Louis off. 1. Because he didn’t actually like to see the boy upset. And 2. Because now he had to do the right thing and join him. Like a dumb scene in a dumb movie that Louis had read and rejected. (Sometimes he had standards.)

“ _Mama_ ,” Louis supplied. “ _Just killed a man._ ”

Harry looked down and grinned a grin so bright Louis was sure his skin would burn. They sang together until Niall stood with a “Fuck it” and also sang as he made his way back behind the bar.

Some of the people were smiling and then others began to sing quietly, no one quite matching the intensity of Harry Styles. As if anyone could.

Most of the pub joined in at the ridiculous uptempo part—everyone loved a good _Bismillah no!_ —and Harry was bouncing dangerously on the table until they cooled down for Harry to solo croon out the ending. Louis watched him in pure delight, the way his eyes scrunched up and he all but doubled over with his hands curled into his stomach when he sang at his most passionate. The intensity was sickening and also endearing.

Laughter and cheering followed the performance—though not as much cheering as Louis felt Harry deserved.

“Thank you! A round of drinks for everyone, courtesy of Louis Tomlinson!” Harry announced.

There was far more cheering for the drinks.

Harry climbed off the table using Louis’ head for support and sauntered back to Niall at the bar.

“What a little shit,” Louis said to Eleanor.

“Only Harry,” she said, shaking her head. “You better come through on those drinks, though, or they’ll all run you out of town.”

Louis moved to the bar. Harry grabbed him and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you for joining me,” he practically shouted.

“Are you quite determined to live your life in a clichéd romantic comedy?” he asked, hoping his face wasn’t turning red.

“What, you don’t believe in fun? That’s going to be a great story those people are going to tell their less interesting friends, the time that drunk idiot got everyone at the pub to sing Queen.”

Louis and Harry dutifully served a pint to every person in the pub and were given a great cheer when the boys and Eleanor left an hour later. Eleanor and Louis were carefully guiding a drunk Harry home.

“Zayn told me there are paparazzi coming to the store?”

“Just some small town guys, not a problem. Paul’s telling them to piss off so I don’t get caught saying something mean to them. Like how they can fuck themselves gently with a chainsaw.”

“I don’t like that they bother you.”

Harry escaped from them, running forward, whirling around, and pretending to shoot Louis with his fingers. “ _Pew pew pew._ ”

Louis clutched at his stomach and groaned gamely, stumbling a little until Harry turned away. Eleanor snorted.

“It’s fine,” Eleanor said, nudged Louis’ shoulder. “I will tell you the second it becomes a problem. Friends don’t tell paparazzi juicy gossip about their friends. I’m pretty sure I’ve read that in the friendship manual, there’s a whole section dedicated to paparazzi/journalist etiquette.”

Louis smiled. He really liked the word friend.

Eleanor yawned big as they deposited Harry in his room.

“I’ve got it,” Louis said and Eleanor left with a pat on his shoulder. He was instantly hit by how quickly she had grown to trust him and how quickly that trust could shatter when he left.

Louis sat Harry down on his bed and removed his brown boots. He had infinitely more trouble trying to disentangle Harry’s blazer from his unnaturally long limbs.

“If at any moment you feel like helping,” Louis said.

“M’very drunk,” Harry mumbled.

“I am very stunningly aware. What were you thinking?”

“I was sad.”

Louis tossed the blazer aside and Harry flopped over onto his pillows. “Did I make you sad?” Louis said quietly as he sat down on the edge of the bed.

“No,” Harry lied into his pillow.

“I’m on the couch,” Louis said, because he didn’t want to be alone. Not that he wouldn’t be alone on the couch, but he wanted to be in a familiar and comfortable place. A home. It was a new feeling for him.

Harry grabbed his wrist. “The couch is small.”

“Maybe for you, sasquatch.”

"Stay." Harry tugged on Louis with a grunt of frustration. Louis didn’t sleep next to people, it was too domestic. But he had that night, Harry rolling away from him to give him plenty of space and Louis positioned himself like the dead, hands on his stomach, staring up at the ceiling and wishing he hadn’t conditioned himself to feel this much discomfort with intimacy.

“You’re a marshmallow, Louis Tomlinson,” Harry had said, half asleep.

Louis closed his eyes on the memory and forced himself to stay in Harry’s bed until after 9 am. The light shined through the curtains of Harry’s small window and Louis was able to see the room for the first time.

It was small as Eleanor’s and painted the same ugly tan. An entire wall was taped over with pictures. The rest of the walls were covered with band posters and cramped writing with Sharpie. _They’re not going to get their deposit back_ , Louis thought.

He read a couple of quotes near the wall of pictures as he approached it.

_I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it, and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be. – Roald Dahl_

_If you can see your path laid out in front of you, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path. – Joseph Campbell_

Louis felt his whole body soften with affection for the idiot boy with the fixation on enthusiasm.

The pictures were mostly family vacation photos and silly photos with Eleanor, a couple with Niall. There weren’t many photos of Harry any earlier than the age of 17, he guessed. But he liked seeing Younger Harry, all big cheese smiles, wide too-green eyes, crisp blazers (not unlike the one from last night, which looked like maybe it hadn’t seen use in a few years), and curly, curly hair.

There seemed to be a few spaces where pictures were removed but not replaced. He stopped in his tracks when he found two pictures of himself in the upper right corner of the wall. One of him with a little girl and one of him openly glaring straight into the lens. He remembered these photos from his day with Eleanor. He wondered when Harry had time to get them printed as he resisted the urge to tear them down. He had made Harry sad, he didn’t deserve a place in his home.

He got caught up wondering who or what the missing pictures were of and if he would ever join that group some day. If he would become an empty spot on the wall of Harry’s life. And other sad shit like that. He turned away and spotted the note Harry had left for him.

_Work until after lunch, then Eleanor and I are kidnapping you from Niall’s. Please destroy this note so no one actually thinks we’re kidnapping you. Harold x_

Louis pocketed the note and took a slow walk back to the bed and breakfast to change his clothing. Niall was half-heartedly wiping down the staircase banner while his face was glued to his phone.

“Oh, top of the morning to ya,” he mocked with a jaunty lilt as soon as he saw Louis. He smiled and waggled his eyebrows and showed no signs of being hungover, though he seemed equally drunk as Harry last night, despite being on the clock.

“Piss off,” Louis said, only lightly irritated.

Niall blocked him on the staircase. “There are people calling around looking for you, trying to find out where you’re staying.” Louis tensed and waited for Niall to drop the bomb. “So far as I know, everyone’s keeping mum. But word is they’re trying to find Eleanor’s house too.”

Louis inhaled deeply to calm himself. Niall didn’t sound finished but he didn’t continue. “And?” Louis prompted.

“And if they find her and harass her at her home because of you, I will break both of your fucking legs,” Niall said carefully before returning a smile to his face. “See you for lunch then?”

“Yeah,” Louis said dumbly and walked up to his room.

“Roast beef sandwiches and Harry’s red velvet cake,” Niall called after him.

Louis dialed his mum’s home phone number but was greeted by a recorded message that she and the girls had taken a three week holiday to France and if there were any emergencies to call her mobile. Just as well, Louis thought. It’s not like anybody knew he was coming, including himself.

He spent the morning lounging, unable to call Zayn or Liam because of the time difference, which is strange that he suddenly cared. He made a few business type phone calls to London before joining Niall for lunch. There didn’t seem to be anybody else home and Niall always seemed completely adverse to work, so he convinced Louis to kick around a football behind the house until Harry and Eleanor arrived.

Louis hadn’t touched a football in years, but he found it was like riding a bike (another thing he hadn’t done in years). Any time Niall maneuvered past Louis and kicked a ball into their makeshift goal, he ran a little victory lap shouting, “Ireland!” at the top of his lungs.

It was exhilarating. Louis forgot about everything for a few minutes and had fun. It was weird. He sort of liked it. The last time Louis made a goal, he went for a victory lap of his own before Niall jumped on his back and pumped his hands in the air. Louis dropped him promptly as he gasped for breath between laughs.

An older lady poked her head out of an upstairs window. “Niall, love, Harry and Eleanor are here—Saints alive, is that Louis Tomlinson?” she shouted down.

“Christ, mum, tell the whole bloody neighborhood,” he shouted back up at her. Niall scrambled to his feet. “I’m sure you’re fine,” he said at a normal volume back to Louis.

Louis half-heartedly cleaned himself up a little in the bathroom before stopping himself from running outside. Harry and Eleanor were leaned up against the car. They probably thought they looked cool. They were cool.

“Get in, loser, we’re going shopping,” she said.

“Exotic,” Louis remarked.

“Harry ripped his jeans today, this is an emergency trip,” she said as Harry pulled out of the driveway.

“We can stop by your place to change. I don’t mind.” Louis was immediately not at all surprised Harry’s jeans didn’t rip on a daily basis, given that they were essentially like cling wrap to Harry’s legs. Not that Louis minded. _No Louis, bad Louis_ , he censured himself.

“Harry needs trousers _today_.”

Harry’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. “Why does Harry need trousers _today_?” Louis asked.

“Good question, Hazza, why do you need them so badly?” The devilish light in Eleanor’s eyes shone bright.

“Because I only have two pairs,” he said quietly.

“What?” Louis said in disbelief. “Only two pairs of jeans, you mean?”

“No, two pairs of trousers total,” Harry mumbled.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“I wash them regularly,” he said testily and the subject was dropped.

Harry modeled each of his pants selections (all of which looked identical to Louis) and Louis and Eleanor appraised and applauded when appropriate from where they were seated closely on a sofa.

“Ten out of ten, absolutely, would bang,” Eleanor announced at the last pair.

Harry’s eyes flicked nervously at Louis, which sort of confused Louis.

“Appreciate the offer, El, but. No, thanks.” Harry smiled and disappeared back to the dressing room.

Louis insisted that Harry purchase at least three new pairs of jeans, which Harry declined politely. Then Louis insisted on purchasing them when it became clear to him that Harry couldn’t afford it. Louis had found Harry’s biggest discernable character flaw and it was pride, which was as admirable as it was frustrating.

Louis had plenty of character flaws to utilize self-aware-like in order to get what he wanted (including a general stubbornness), so he manipulated Harry into falling into one of the “Whatever I Can Do to Make You Happy” traps, because Louis said it would make him very happy to purchase Harry some shit jeans from the mall.

Also Louis was a fucking millionaire, but he didn’t say that because he had only a small amount of tact.

“Harry stop moving. Harry. Please. _Harold would you please stand still_ ,” Louis implored.

Harry had found a life size cardboard cutout of Louis from some action movie franchise he was part of. Louis wondered what sort of depths of unpurchased merchandise hell these people had dragged this out of in order to capitalize on Louis’ presence. The cutout was in the window of a strange movie/book/music shop. Louis insisted on playing around with the freakish thing, which sort of made him uncomfortable but also made him amused. Harry was to be posing with the thing but he kept shifting into stupid poses.

“Do you want all of the pictures in your section of the museum they build to honor my life to be only blurry pictures?”

“I’m going to be in the Louis Tomlinson Museum?”

“Yes, the Harold Styles Section in the Hall of Poor Decision Making.”

Harry shot him both a jokingly irritated look and his middle finger, and Louis snapped that photo.

“That’ll be my phone background,” Louis said and set it immediately. He then held the phone out to Harry. “I need a few for Twitter.”

Harry took a photo of Louis standing next to Cardboard Louis and looking comically awkward and baffled. For the next, he then gave Cardboard Louis a kiss, which delighted Harry for a moment. The words of the last girl Liam had tried to set him up with floated out of his memory, “The only person Louis Tomlinson loves is Louis Tomlinson.” Rude.

His face must as fallen because Harry’s did too. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Louis shook his head and Harry lowered the phone. He put a hand to Louis’ arm and Louis, without thinking, put his hand over Harry’s.

“We’re okay,” Harry said simply.

Eleanor entered the store with a soft pretzel. Louis pulled away from Harry and couldn’t brave looking up to see what that did to him. “Oh my great giddy aunt,” she said, eyeing the Cardboard Louis. “Hazza, you need one of those for cuddling when Louis leaves.”

Louis’ breath caught in his chest but Harry laughed it off. “I’ll just use the Louis Tomlinson body pillow you’ve hidden under your bed.”

Louis’ eyes widened with delight as he rounded on Eleanor. “Body pillow? I think I need to see that. Also I need a marker.”

Eleanor lifted an eyebrow but fished a black Sharpie from the deep recesses of her purse.

“You are endlessly useful,” Louis said as thanks and began to doodle on Cardboard Louis. An employee stopped by before Louis was almost done with his rather elaborate mustache drawing.

“Oh my god, you can’t write on that, sir!” she shouted, looking scandalized until she flicked her eyes between the identical faces of flesh and cardboard.

“Two seconds,” Louis answered, finishing the mustache and signing his name across his cardboard chest. “Have you got a phone?”

The employee, sort of paralyzed, nodded and grabbed her phone from her pocket. Louis plucked the phone from her hands and handed it to Harry. “Over here, love,” Louis directed her and Harry snapped a picture of the bewildered employee, Louis (holding up the Sharpie and matching her bewildered face), and Cardboard Louis.

“I’ll buy this guy and one more if you’ve got it. Then you sell this online, take the money, and do something stupid with your mates, yeah?” Louis said. The employee nodded furiously.

“Or donate it to charity,” Eleanor said.

“Or donate it to charity,” Louis repeated with a humorously large eye roll. He secretly mouthed _do something stupid_ with a firm nod to the employee. “I’m definitely sending one of these to Liam. That way he can have one of us who’ll stay quiet and do as he says.”

They fooled around at the mall for a while longer before heading back home. Eleanor was attempting to discuss dinner plans, early as it was.

“I’m knackered, I’m just going to have an early night. You guys should have a date night,” Harry said, with an inscrutable look on his face.

“You should come be with us,” Louis said instantly.

“It’s fine. You guys haven’t had a lot of alone time,” he replied, trying to fix his face into a smile.

“Oh, please, Harold,” Eleanor said with an eye roll. Louis stiffened. Harold was his thing.

Harry grabbed Eleanor’s hand and threw a small, “Excuse us” to Louis before he pulled her upstairs.

A million things blew through Louis’ mind. He was mad about the bakery thing. Embarrassed over getting pissed at Niall’s. Ashamed to have spent the night with his arm draped over Louis. Louis pulled away from him. Every one of those options were completely unacceptable.

Louis was about to stomp upstairs and yell at Harry until he saw reason. And then kiss Harry until he couldn’t see straight.

Louis gripped at the staircase. Any time Harry grabbed his hand, Louis wanted to pull him closer. When Harry started pecking him lightly on the cheek, Louis wanted to turn his head just a little. He was uncomfortable with being touched, but he was apparently prepared to make an exception if Harry was the one doing the touching.

Thing is, Harry grabbed everyone’s hands and pecked kisses to everyone’s cheeks. He loved people and he loved showing it.

Eleanor practically ran downstairs. “To dinner!”

Dinner was uncomfortable. It was pleasant enough, entertaining, sure, but with a mountain of poorly hidden tension that was slowly pissing Louis off. He didn’t do this kind of shit. He would certainly never stand for it in his life.

“Is Harry mad at me?” he blurted.

“No, he was just tired.”

“Harry wasn’t tired.”

“No. He wasn’t,” she said shortly, finishing the conversation. She still reached out and held his hand. Louis bristled for only a moment and set to work compartmentalizing. He focused on the task at hand (aha). The task being Eleanor and convincing himself that there was some strange world where they could be happy together. People would like that.

Eleanor walked him to the door of the bed and breakfast. The sun was barely setting. They stood awkwardly for a moment. Fuck it, Louis thought, which was not the most romantic thought he could have had at the moment.

He took her face in his hands, didn’t really register the look of surprise on her face, and he kissed her. She kissed back. It had no passion or fire or fireworks or anything cliché the world associated with love. It was a nice kiss but no one would remember it. So it was about on par with every other kiss he’d had in his life.

He pulled away first and she put her head to his chest. He moved his hands to her back and rubbed softly, a learned technique from his films.

“I really like you,” she said.

“I really like you,” he echoed.

“But I don’t want to date you.”

Louis paused. He practically laughed in relief but held it in.

“I do like you,” she said, “and I find you attractive and you’re like nice and shit, and I really tried, I tried hard because you seemed like you may be open to it, but I’m not. I have too much self-respect to pretend. And I’m really sorry if I led you on or something.”

 _Led you on._ Louis almost laughed again. “I don’t want to date you either.”

“Oh,” she said lightly. “Well, this is embarrassing.”

“No, I didn’t—I was going to. Ask you. I really thought I should date you because I like you and you are attractive and you are also nice and shit. I thought you were the person I needed.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re not,” he agreed. Because he thought maybe Harry was. And then he refused to think that again.

“Fuck, though, I still want to be your friend,” she said quickly.

“Oh. Okay. I mean, if I have to,” he said sarcastically.

Eleanor left and Louis wandered around downstairs. He supposed he didn’t want to be alone. Also a new experience for him because he thrived on solitude.

“Can I help you, love?” Niall’s mum asked from the kitchen.

“No, thank you. I suppose I was looking for Niall.”

“He’ll be at the pub tonight.”

“Right.” Louis stood uncomfortably in the doorway, not quite willing to return to his room.

“How do you like your tea?” she asked, pouring him a cup.

Tea was a habit he broke once it was clear to him that coffee was the drink of choice in LA. He hated coffee. He _despised_ coffee. But it was nearly impossible to get tea on set without being the asshole that sends a PA for it, so he slurped coffee down like everyone else, who seemed to be comprised of at least 25% coffee at any given time. He wondered if he could start a new trend back home, a tea revolution. A teavolution.

Niall’s mum cleared her throat a little.

“However you like it,” he said at last.

She pressed the mug into his hands and squeezed his shoulder. “Night, dear.”

A thought occurred to him. “You don’t happen to have Harry Styles’ phone number, do you?”

She gestured with a smile to the emergency contact list taped to the refrigerator. Harry’s number was sloppily written toward the bottom, after the number to Niall’s pub.

Louis sat on his bed and considered his opening move, his overture, to salvage his friendship with Harry. He couldn’t think of anything good, so he stuck to what he did best. Talking about himself.

_i got a really important audition, complete change of pace, opportunity of a lifetime type shit_

The response was almost immediate. Louis smirked. **_Scorcese?_**

_cabaret on broadway_

**_That’s amazing. What part?_ **

_emcee. i’m losing my shit_

**_You would be brilliant._ **

_I agree_

**_All class, you are._ **

_it would be a huge risk. Mgmt probably not happy_

**_But you have to do it?_ **

_I think I really need to, deep down in my SOUL, you know. my soul_

**_You deserve everything you’ve ever wanted, Lou._ **

Louis paused. _so do you_

The wait time for a response was much longer this time. Louis began to get worried.

**_You’re going to regret giving me your number._ **

_oh yeah?_

**_I can see the bathroom stalls now. ‘For a just all right time, call…’_ **

_fuck off harold. The bathroom stall door swings both ways_

_well not like usually but in this case metaphorically it does_

_what i’m trying to say is watch yourself_

**_Haha, night Lou x_ **

_night love_

Louis paused and then added an x of his own.

\--


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this chapter after I finished the whole thing because I realized I completely skipped a day in the timeline. I could have breezed over it, but how could I resist writing for myself a chapter full of tooth-rotting fluff, a completely self-indulgent scene of musical theatre, and a literal forest of Pine Trees (get it because of all the pining, PINE trees help me).
> 
> Thank you for reading this. I like you all. Can I keep you?

Eleanor and Harry were lucky enough to be on the same shift that day, though they were sure they could thank their co-workers and Paul for the sudden shifting of schedules. They started early, running quickly into the store away from the one guy with the camera who seemed to just now live in the parking lot of the Tesco.

“What do you think of Louis?” Eleanor said as casually as she could as they cleaned down the counter. They had sort of avoided anything to do with the subject of Louis Tomlinson in their rare times alone this week. Harry wasn’t sure why Eleanor didn’t talk about it, but Harry didn’t say anything because he never wanted to step on their toes. He already felt bad enough about the amount of time he spent third-wheeling them. He didn’t regret it of course, but he always wondered if maybe they did and were too kind to say.

“I think Louis is brilliant. Sort of like how I expected him, but then not at all how I expected him. But in a good way.”

“Good,” Eleanor said and planted a kiss to Harry’s cheek. “That is a very accurate way of describing him.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.”

“What else do you think?”

 _Mostly I think about kissing him_ , Harry did not say. He also thought a lot about their Louis, the relaxed Louis, the Louis who didn’t have any fronts or practiced answers. The Louis who chose simple t-shirts and jeans and Vans over the trendy braces and fancy colored trousers and expensive coats he was always photographed in. Louis in his natural habitat, perhaps.

“I guess I worry about him,” Harry did say.

Eleanor frowned and Harry wondered how many of the things Louis shared with him were also shared with Eleanor. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Louis’ not, like, fragile or anything. He knows what he’s doing. He certainly doesn’t need me worrying. I guess it’s because I care. So. I don’t know.” Harry shrugged and laughed and Eleanor nodded and gave an appeasing smile. “I like Louis.”

“I like him too,” Eleanor said with affection. “We will probably keep him once he’s house broken.”

“He already comes when you call his name. I feel like he’s almost ready for fetch.”

“He will slowly murder us if he knew we were talking about him like a dog.” Eleanor paused. “Well. Slowly murder me, more like.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, Hazza, you’re too pretty to die.” She tugged on a curl and he narrowed his eyes and slapped flour onto her face in retaliation.

Although they had planned to meet with him after work, Louis showed up at the Tesco shortly after lunch. Harry probably shouldn’t have said his name three times in quick succession, Louis was summoned so readily.

“What are you doing here?” Eleanor asked, all tact.

“I got bored. So terribly bored,” Louis sighed, leaning against the counter. “And now I’m going to get you in as much trouble as I can manage. Simply because I lack entertainment.”

“If we had known you were coming this week, we would have asked for time off,” Eleanor chastised and Harry nodded seriously, noting the use of _we_ and not _I_.

Louis made a silly face, let himself behind the counter, and gamely pulled on a hairnet.

“You are going to cause mass hysteria here. Again,” Eleanor said. “The way these people act, you’d think we’re harboring the bloody Prince of Wales. We have actual work to do. Hazza?”

“I’m baking a birthday cake,” Harry said, pulling Louis by the hand to the back counter. “You may help, but only if you solemnly swear to do exactly as I say.”

“It is an honor and a privilege to study under the world’s foremost baker of birthday cakes,” Louis said with a flourished bow.

“I wouldn’t go that far. But it is Ed’s birthday and he will have the best possible birthday cake imaginable.”

“Who’s Ed?” Louis shifted a little on his feet.

Harry fancied the idea of a little jealousy brewing behind Louis’ eyes. But that was purely his imagination. “Dunno. But it’s his sixteenth birthday and he’s got a thing for _Breaking Bad_ , bless. I don’t know how I feel about a blue meth-themed birthday cake, but y’know.” Harry shrugged and Louis cackled. _Cackled_. Obscene.

“That’s _brilliant._ I just finished the last season three weeks ago.”

Harry narrowed his eyes. “So movies are off-limits, but you’ve seen every episode of _Breaking Bad_?”

“Of course I have, Harold, I’m not an _animal_.”

Eleanor handled any customers as the two worked diligently. Louis took direction as earnestly as he could, which surprised Harry a little. The promise of mischief faded away, he supposed, in favor of respect for Harry’s job. Harry appreciated it. He was happy.

“How’s the batter coming along?”

“Looks a bit dodgy.” Louis pursed his lips at the blue liquid.

“All I’ve asked you to do is whisk it, how can you have possibly ruined it?”

“We all have our particular set of skills, Harold.”

“Well, you’re not wrong.”

“Kindly fuck off.”

Harry glanced into Louis’ bowl. “Throw it out,” Harry growled, doing his best Walter White.

“What?”

“The consistency is all wrong. Anything less than perfect is useless.”

“Harry. Honestly. I think it’ll be fine.” Louis looked concerned, and Harry almost dropped it then. But he couldn’t resist.

“I have a reputation to uphold. My cakes are chemically pure, no cutting corners. _I am the one who bakes._ ”

Louis stared for a moment and then gave a tight smile and rolled his eyes, an action Harry now associated with affection. “Oh, you’re doing Heisenberg, I get it, I get it.”

“You looked scared for a second there. You definitely thought I was upset. This is _delightful_.”

“No, I didn’t,” Louis said primly, whisking the batter a little harder than necessary.

Eleanor cleared her throat behind them. “Far be it from me to disrupt the old married couple, but Haz, Paul needs to talk about Founder’s Day.”

Old married couple. Harry wouldn’t look at Louis.

Harry quickly guided Louis through pouring the cake batter into the pan and setting up the oven to cook. When he concluded his discussion over the logistics of his booth at Founder’s Day, the cake was nearly done. Louis messed about with Eleanor at the front counter as the cake cooled. A few people had noticed Louis’ presence--it was hard not to, he just _shone_ like a _beacon_ and Harry was _sappy_ and it was starting to get _pathetic­_ —and soon enough a gaggle of young girls had found their way into the store, attempting to talk to them as they feigned interest in cookies and loaves of bread.

“Harry,” Louis called over his shoulder as Harry walked back into the bakery area. “Do you have any idea why five separate girls have offered me bags of carrots today?”

“I might have said something to a couple of the girls yesterday about you _really_ liking carrots.”

“How do you know whether or not I _really_ like carrots?”

“I don’t.” Harry smirked and Louis narrowed his eyes.

Harry stole Louis away from Eleanor to test out some of the icing decoration tools as Harry practiced drawing men in yellow hazmat suits and gas masks. Louis wrote obscene comments in shaky lettering on the pieces of cardboard Harry used for practice. Harry ran a finger through a particularly offensive one, scooping up some of the icing, and popping it into his mouth.

“How did you get into acting?” Harry asked as they carefully spread the base layer of icing over the cooled cake.

“I was always something of a performer growing up. My mum worked in television sometimes, so she would bring me along. I got little gigs as an extra before doing adverts and a couple of minor roles in some truly terrible dramas. I never really took it seriously until I started doing plays in school and my mum got me in touch with an agent and I started branching out.”

“What brought you to America?”

“There was this weird little competition show that I got into when I was sixteen. They were trying to jump start a new show about teenagers, some _Skins_ derivative, really, by letting Britain vote on the cast. It didn’t work out really, they cancelled the show before we had even filmed enough episodes to air. But one of the producers liked me and set me up with a new agent and my management company and a startlingly thorough contract and the next thing I knew, I was leaving behind the girls and my home and everything I knew to move to Los Angeles to work on _Take Me Home_.” He spoke sort of uncomfortably, his eyes glued to the blue rock candy he was smashing up and sprinkling on top of the cake.

“I used to watch that show. It was good.”

“Thanks,” Louis said, though it didn’t feel like his heart was in it.

“It’s no _Friends_ though.”

“Well, you’re not wrong,” Louis mocked.

Harry thought back on the show. “You had a catchphrase, didn’t you?”

“Oh, god, don’t. Please. I’ve only just stopped getting people saying it to me on the streets.”

“I am going to remember it. Any second now.”

“Don’t you dare. I will murder you if you say it aloud.”

“What _was it_?”

Louis approached him and grabbed him playfully around the neck. “Hold still, Styles, I am attempting murder.”

“Okay, okay, uncle.” Harry bobbed out of Louis’ reach quickly with a giggle. A fucking _giggle_. They settled into a sort of quiet. “Was your mum okay with you doing all of this?”

Louis paused. “Yes and no. she was proud of me and she wanted me to follow my dreams and all that shit. But I think she sort of regrets how quickly I had to grow up to survive.”

Harry paused. “Were _you_ okay with doing all of this?”

Louis gave a tight smile. “I didn’t really think about it.” It seemed like that conversation was over.

Harry wrote Ed’s cake inscription in ironically flowery lettering: _Happy birthday, bitch._

Just before they left for the day, Louis pulled him aside. He smiled hesitantly, which made Harry smile brightly. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I was doing a bit of reading. And I noticed the other day about your room and the walls. It’s. Well. Here. I thought this would fit.”

Harry was not used to the flustering Louis Tomlinson. It was charming but also worrying. Harry took the proffered small piece of paper and read the carefully written inscription.

_“Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.” – Douglas Adams_

Harry definitely wasn’t about to cry or anything like that. “It’s perfect. I love Douglas Adams,” he said softly.

“Great,” Louis said abruptly and strode over to Eleanor. Harry tucked the piece of paper carefully into his wallet.

He liked having Louis in the kitchen, as stressful as it was. It was a special thing, almost like letting Louis see him at home. Well, Louis had seen Harry at home, and he had seen Harry cook for him. But not with him. This was something different. It felt intimate. It was all trust and co-habitation and bumping hips and pressing a kiss to his cheek when the cake was finalized and perfect.

Harry knew what the plans were for the late afternoon, once they got off at four. He had let spill Louis’ exciting news to Eleanor and she had devised a cunning plan to practically force Louis into letting them see him where he was at home. He only hoped it wasn’t asking too much.

\--

Louis tried to ignore the paparazzi stationed in the car park, using their long lenses because their manager Paul had threatened them with the police if they crowded the entrance like they used to. He had never known paparazzi to clear off at the threat of the police. He wondered how scary Paul was. It was frustrating, as if truly _fascinating_ and _newsworthy_ things happened at a shop that were worth photographing. He ushered the two with possessive hands on their backs toward their car and told them to keep their heads down. This was private time.

Louis wasn’t sure where they were driving, and he didn’t trust them at all. They were all devious smirks and vague comments and questions like _are you dressed comfortably._

Eleanor pulled into a car park for a dance studio and Louis’ stomach fell.

“What is this?”

“A dance studio,” Eleanor said lightly.

“No shit.”

“You didn’t tell me about _Cabaret_ first, you shit, so now you’re going to make it up to me.”

Louis groaned repeatedly, like an _adult_ , but followed them until Eleanor had charmed her way into securing a small rehearsal space on the second floor of the dance studio.

“Give us a show, then,” Eleanor said expectantly.

Louis glanced at Harry, looking for sympathy. What he found was a shit-eating grin and a supportive thumbs up. “I hate you both.”

“No, you don’t,” they said simultaneously. Louis wondered if they practiced.

“Sing us a song,” Harry prompted.

“No, thank you.”

“If you can’t sing in front of us, how are you going to audition for this show?”

“Telepathy. And also telling them I’d do it for free. Artists who are also producers, they _pretend_ like the money doesn’t matter, but budgets always take precedence.”

Harry scowled. “Louis, this is serious.”

“When was the last time you actually had to audition for something?” Eleanor asked, and she had a point. Nowadays people just called up his agent and offered him roles. He screen tested every once in a while, but that was very different from an audition.

“You know what we’re like at home. Show us what you’re like at home,” Harry said.

“I’m not taking you to LA.”

“You’re at home when you perform,” Harry said, not a question but a statement, a true statement and it burned deep into Louis’ core.

Louis stared for a moment at the curls and the frown and the earnestness and it was too fucking _much_. “Sing with me.”

“I won’t be there with you.”

Louis sighed exasperated. “This is an ambush. I’m not just going to perform for you. This is my _craft_ , people pay me mil—lots of money to perform. How will you pay me?”

“With an infinite amount of the chicken thing.”

“Deal,” Louis said instantly because that changed things.

Eleanor scowled then. “What is the chicken thing?”

“Nothing,” Harry and Louis said simultaneously.

“I need to prepare. Thirty minutes tops. Get out of the room.”

Harry and Eleanor rose. Louis caught Harry by the arm as Eleanor left unknowingly.

“I’m nervous,” Louis said quickly before he could think better of it.

“Oh. Shit. You don’t have to do it, we didn’t mean to pressure you, Lou. We just thought it would be fun.” Harry grabbed his hands for the second time that day and Louis kind of wanted to die. “I love to hear you sing.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll. I don’t get stage fright, this is ridiculous.” Louis laughed but it didn’t sound right. What the fuck was wrong with him? He didn’t let go of Harry’s hands. “I think, like, I worry about what you are going to think,” he said. _I want you to be proud of me_ , he did not say.

Harry smiled and squeezed Louis’ hands. “So far, you have proven yourself incapable of underwhelming or disappointing me. And I want you to be more concerned with making yourself happy with your work.”

“Get out this instant,” Louis said with a smile and shoved Harry out the door because he had done enough feeling for the day. He had done a particularly large amount of feeling after Harry had decided to start licking icing from his own fingers, which was, quite frankly, highly unsanitary. He should probably have informed the manager of a health code violation. Harry probably would have smiled his way out of trouble, the fucker.

When Harry and Eleanor returned, Louis instructed them that they would be part of the performance as punishment for their betrayal.

“What do we have to do?” Eleanor said warily.

“This will be an exercise in improvisation.” Louis set up the karaoke track he had found on YouTube and plugged his phone into the speaker system in the corner of the room. “Don’t be scared. Do you trust me?”

Eleanor nodded quickly. Harry quirked his eyebrows up but said nothing.

The opening electric guitar riffs of the song, “I’m Alive” from _Next to Normal_ , seemed to startle his scene-mates. Louis dropped his face into a mischievous grin, which also drew surprised looks from the two. He had chosen this song specifically because it was both charming and terrifying. He approached them slowly, singing carefully.

_I’m what you want me to be, and I’m your worst fear, you’ll find it in me._

Eleanor took a careful breath as Louis wrapped his arms around her stomach and sung almost into her neck. _Come closer. Come closer._

He pulled away from her and rounded on Harry, who watched with wide eyes.

_I’m more than memory, I am what might be, I am mystery._

He yanked at Harry’s hand and spun him around mockingly. _You know me. So show me._

The song picked up, and Louis sang confidently, strutting around and using his people as props like the character Gabe would, the two of them sort of appropriately bewildered but still sort of game to play along. He grabbed Eleanor and led her in a quick dance, holding her close and maneuvering her confidently, before spinning her off and pulling Harry by the hands to the mirror lining one of the walls. He was hardly tall enough to look comfortably over Harry’s shoulder and find his eyes in the mirror.

_I’m your wish, your dream come true, and I am your darkest nightmare too. I’ve shown you. I own you._

Harry blinked slowly but Louis didn’t focus on it. His mind was on the song, on the scene, on his performance.

Louis belted through the end of the song, a mountain of _I’m alive_ ’s repeating furiously. At some point he closed his eyes in concentration, which was cliché and a habit he needed to break immediately. But when he pulled himself out of the performance, he found Eleanor beaming and Harry breathing carefully.

“Holy shit,” Harry said softly.

“That was amazing,” Eleanor said confidently.

“Yeah?” Louis smiled.

“You have to sing that. Every day. For the rest of your life,” Harry said.

“I’m going for _Cabaret_ , love, I don’t think they’ll be willing to put that song in.” Louis was wary of how careful Harry was speaking.

“I don’t care. Put that song in everything,” Eleanor agreed.

“What did you think? I’m an actor. Stroke my ego. Give me adjectives.”

“It was brilliant.”

“Charismatic,” Harry supplied.

“Like. Sexy.”

Harry made a noise of agreement. “Dangerous.”

Louis stared at Harry for a moment longer than necessary. Thankfully Eleanor came to the rescue. “Dancing! We must now dance. I have taken the liberty of choreographing a number for you both. If you would please stand here.”

“Absolutely not, never again,” Harry said petulantly.

“This double standard regarding embarrassment is particularly egregious, Harold. I’m dancing, you’re dancing.” Louis yanked Harry closer.

Eleanor’s choreography was impossible to follow, and the exercise ended up devolving into chaos. All Harry was capable of was jumping around and flailing, in addition to the limited amount of moves he learned from _The Breakfast Club_. Louis led him around in some choice moves from _Grease_ , but when Eleanor couldn’t contain her laughter, Harry’s face burned red and he declined to dance further. Louis contained his irritation, but only just so.

“Oh, come on, Hazza, you were per- _fect_ ,” Eleanor said, hanging onto the arm of a still pouty Harry as they walked home.

Louis quickly asserted his agreement. Harry smiled a little then, playfully shoving at both of them.

Harry then leaned up to Louis’ ear and said quietly, “As a special reward for you, it’s the chicken thing for dinner. Wanna help?”

Louis shuddered.

Harry allowed Louis to wear one of his headbands, though Louis probably would have taken one without permission. Harry chased Eleanor from the stove and she sat on the loveseat with a huff and shouted, “Fine, you may prepare dinner without my help, peasants.”

“Cooking is at its very core about following instructions,” Harry said seriously, with his hands behind his back and his back straight. “Only once you understand the instructions and why they’re there can you improvise. This is going to be harder than a cake and I’m going to give you more responsibility because I believe you can handle it. Can you follow instructions?”

“My schoolteachers always said I had _an issue with authority figures_.”

“Do you have an issue with me as an authority figure?” Harry quirked an eyebrow.

“You’ve bossed me around enough today, I think we’re going to go with no.”

Harry flipped on his iPod, carefully removed his bracelets and rings, and set Louis up peeling potatoes for the mash. Louis waited impatiently for Harry to begin singing before joining him. Everything was comfortable.

Louis felt he needed to be glued to Harry, which he wondered if it had to do with feeling finally free from obligation to Eleanor. He would sit a little too close or find reasons to place a hand to guide him places, though Harry definitely knew better than Louis where he was going. He found reasons to be side-by-side with Harry when they cooked together. When they crammed onto the litchen loveseat after dinner, Louis threw his legs over Harry’s lap and Harry’s hands had settled easily on top of them.

It was an odd and infuriating development and Louis couldn’t bring himself to hate it.

\--


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (SPOILERSISH) For a sort of trigger warning, an original character says some not-nice things and it gets a little anxiety-ridden and there's a tiny bit of violence.  
> If you're reading this, I like you and you're just going to have to live with that.

Harry was awake at four am Saturday morning to bake himself silly at the Tesco with Paul to use their larger ovens. The festival was to last all weekend and he didn’t want to do any more baking after the show got started. So he told himself.

The real truth is he was up all night thinking about Louis and the quiet, sad things he said in confidence that made him worry. He shouldn’t worry about Louis, he knew nothing about Louis. Louis had seemed to approach his life with self-awareness, with complete acknowledgment that everything about his life was absurd. Louis didn’t want or need Harry’s pity and Harry hoped his empathy was not confused for pity. These were the things he couldn’t tell Eleanor.

And that _song_ that set his pulse racing and his heart on fire. To see Louis in his element, to be a part of it. It was exactly that combination of terror and exhilaration that Louis had described. He would let Louis sing to him every day. Because it was the single sexiest thing on the _planet_.

Once he dragged himself out of bed, he solemnly swore to put all such thoughts of Louis Tomlinson and all that touching from yesterday that definitely did _not_ go un-noticed by Harry, behind him. He wrapped up his hair, rolled up the sleeves of his jumper, and went to work.

He left Tesco’s with Paul some hours later to set up the Harry’s Corner section of the festival. Harry was having a delightful day. He didn’t stray away from his tent, but he was in perfect position to see the small stage where local bands and groups of little kid dancers performed. He could see other vendors, from in town and from neighboring towns, a small petting zoo with goats and a miniature horse, a bouncy castle, and a dunk tank that it was far too cold for.

He was amazed at what his town had done in so short notice. It wasn’t much, probably, to any other sort of town fair, but it was lovely.

He was recognized by a few young girls twice in the day, local girls who knew he was Eleanor’s best friend. They asked him if he’d met Louis Tomlinson and what he was like. Harry answered with innocuous responses like, “Loud. Just really loud.”

Harry was cleaning up nicely, turning a tidy profit during a lunch rush. He chatted easily and happily with every patron, which, after the baking, was one of the best perks of his job. He was enjoying a small break and munching on fresh popped kettle corn from a few booths away. He ate standing, sort of bouncing around, unable to contain his good mood energy. A short man with a serious expression approached the table and surveyed the goods appraisingly.

“What’s the best you’ve got?” he said to Paul, who had walked up to assist him.

“Everything. Not an exaggeration,” Paul said and Harry felt his cheeks go pink.

The man plucked quite a few choices from the mix, all diverse, and ate them as soon as he paid for them, taking a moment to consider the taste. Harry tried not to watch so openly for the man’s response.

“Are you Harry then?” he asked Paul.

“No, Harry’s that one,” Paul said, with a thumb to Harry. Harry scrambled up to the man, who firmly shook his hand and handed him a card.

“I’m Simon, I’m chief baker at Espressoself,” he said, confirming what Harry read on the card. Espressoself, a bold pun--Harry had always appreciated it. They were a big chain of coffee and tea shops around the UK and Harry had heard they recently branched out into New York.

Harry nodded. “I’m Harry, I’m bakery lead at Tesco.”

Simon smiled. “We’re expanding our brand to encompass more pastries and the like to complement our beverages. I like your work. We hold fellowships in London,” he said all businesslike and not as if he was saying the most wonderful things in the world. “Give us a ring if you’re interested, yes?”

Harry stared dumbfounded as the man walked away without waiting for a response. Paul snapped him out of it with a strong clap to the back.

“Well done, Harry!” he shouted. “Taking a break, back in 10?”

Harry immediately wanted to tell Louis. He was honestly surprised he had yet to see him that day. Harry slipped the business card into his wallet.

“I recognize you,” a voice behind Harry said.

“Sorry?” Harry replied.

“From Twitter. You’re Harry Styles,” the man said.

Harry didn’t have a Twitter and he informed the man as such.

“Louis Tomlinson does, though,” the man said with a grin.

“Would you like to sample something?” Harry said, anxious upon hearing his name.

“Can I ask you some questions about Louis?”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you close to him?”

“I really can’t—”

“What about Eleanor?”

“I’m sorry, please—”

“Is she fucking him?”

“Excuse me?”

“Are you fucking him?”

“What?” Harry’s face flared up with heat.

“You seem more like his type. According to those photos from a few months ago.”

“Please leave,” Harry breathed. He saw the man’s mobile phone was recording them and he refused to say anything more.

“Oh, come on, Harry. Give us a little, we’ll put you on the front page of _The Daily Mail_ and every television in Britain.”

Harry was having difficulty breathing.

“What’s he like, Harry? Don’t be shy, Harry. Who are you to them, Harry? Are you Eleanor’s boyfriend? You’re always around them. Is she cheating on you with Louis Tomlinson? I’m just concerned for your well-being. Louis doesn’t treat his girls with very much respect. We’re all worried for Eleanor. And for you.”

Harry was practically paralyzed, rooted to the spot, overwhelmed with terror and anger and anxiety every time the man used his name.

“She seemed to give it up for him pretty quickly, didn’t she? Does she always give it up that quickly? What about you, Harry? Talk to us about Louis. You realize his relationship with Eleanor is a lie. It’s all a publicity stunt. Louis is manipulating you, how do you feel about that?”

Harry surged with anger. Suddenly he was practically shoved aside by Louis, who forced himself in front of Harry.

“Don’t you fucking talk to him, don’t you dare fucking talk to him,” Louis snarled. Harry’s eyes shot to the floor.

“We were just chatting,” the pap said easily.

“No. You shits can come after me, but you leave him alone. You leave all of them alone. Or I’ll break your fingers. Get the fuck out of here.”

“You didn’t mind, right, Harry?”

Louis lobbed a punch and connected with the side of the paparazzo’s face. Harry thought he couldn’t sink deeper into shock. “ _You don’t get to say his name_.”

“What’s going on?” Eleanor said, pushing through the small camera phone-toting crowd that had formed around the booth.

“This bastard is leaving,” Louis spat as the man collected his phone from where it fell.

“What a douchebag,” the pap said as he walked away.

Louis grabbed Harry’s hands and led him to the area behind the tent where no one could see them. Harry followed in a daze.

“Don’t even think about him,” Louis said, pulling Harry in for a hug.

“He said such terrible things,” Harry mumbled.

“Don’t tell me what he said, I’ll probably just make good on my threat and break his fucking fingers.”

He was having difficulty finding the words. “How can he say things about a person? You’re just a human being. And Eleanor.”

“People like reading humiliating things about strangers, Harry. It’s a cruel fact of life. Never believe them. I’m so sorry to have put you through this.”

Harry shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He began to put it to the back of his mind. He reached out to find things he was enthusiastic about. The care in Louis’ eyes. His food was selling. It was a beautiful day. He was proud of his town. He had done well. He found his wide smile. Louis looked concerned still, unconvinced by the smile.

Either way, Louis put a hand gently to Harry’s back and guided him to where Eleanor and Paul stood, frowning and talking at each other.

“Harry, what’s happened?” Paul asked.

“Some dick was harassing him; I took care of it.” Louis waved it off. His eyes fell on some cupcakes on the ground that the pap had knocked off the table. He picked them up. “I should pay for these.”

“Lou,” Harry said quietly.

“Now you won’t get to sell them.”

“It’s fine.”

“I’ll pay for them, this is your livelihood.”

“Stop,” Harry snapped. “I don’t want your money.”

Louis blinked slowly before his face immediately fell into that goddamn passive mask. “Fine.”

Harry put a hand through the back of his hair. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I need something deep fried on a stick.” Louis turned quickly and stormed away.

“Take a break,” Eleanor said immediately, turning on Harry.

“What?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes…?”

“Great. I love you. Paul and I have got this. Take a break, Haz.” She dropped a kiss on his cheek and spun him around.

Harry didn’t run but he walked with purpose toward where he had seen Louis disappeared to. He had already put on his sunglasses and his beanie and was utilizing his low profile behavior. Luckily Harry would know him anywhere.

Louis dragged his fingers through a few wind chimes at a vendor booth. “I’m not apologizing,” he said, not looking up.

“Neither am I,” Harry said. They stood in silence.

“I couldn’t find any corndogs.”

“I think there’s a fish and chips thing going on over there.”

They walked closely, shoulders touching, reminding Harry once again of why he was supposed to stay far away from him. It had gotten especially worse since yesterday. But Harry couldn’t quite decide whether he cared anymore.

“So. _Cabaret_. Feeling any better about it?”

“I’m waffling between elated and terrified.”

“You are going to be the second best Emcee Broadway has ever seen.”

Louis threw him a look over his chips that was mostly masked by his sunglasses. “If I get it.”

“You’ll get it.”

“Ring up the casting director, then, Hazza Styles says it’s a yes!”

Harry smiled big but said low, “I think I prefer Harold.”

“I think I do too.” Louis gave a guarded smile of his own and looked away. “Is that Nialler in a dunk tank?”

“It would not surprise me at all,” Harry said, craning his neck to indeed confirm one half-naked Niall Horan was seated neglected in the dunk tank, kicking his legs above the water and daring people to send him in.

Louis smiled mischievously and shot over to the tank, leaving Harry to deal with the food.

“Oh, _Jaysus_ ,” Niall croaked at the dunk tank attendant. “Don’t you let _him_ play.”

“Why ever not?” Louis pouted.

“Because you’ll put me in the drink, you prick!”

“That’s the whole point.”

“ _No_ , the whole point is to collect money for charity by banking on people’s inability to hit a football at a very small target.”

“I’m warmed up from the other day,” Louis said, jumping to psych himself up. “How much money have you made today?”

“Seven quid,” said the bored attendant, who was leaned up against the wooden flat that had a goal painted on it and a small red button in the middle to trigger the dunk.

“Here’s twenty quid, but I’ll only need the one ball,” Louis said, handing Harry his hat and sunglasses. Harry pocketed the hat and slipped on the sunglasses. He was delighted by this turn of events.

Harry was even more delighted at the stifled scream and look of terror as Niall’s seat dropped him. Louis threw his hands up and took a ridiculous victory lap, shouting, “Gooooal!” He crashed into Harry, who hugged him tight before letting go. Just because he could.

Harry tried not to count the number of happy crinkles in Louis’ eyes as they formed with his grin. Niall was whooping and splashing gamely in the water before climbing up the ladder and out of the tank. He shivered as he wrapped himself in a towel. “Freezing as shit,” he chattered.

“What are you raising money for?” Harry asked.

“Primary school needs more band instruments,” Niall said. “I teach the guitar class,” he explained to Louis.

“Ah shit, I really wish you hadn’t said it was for kids,” Louis said, pursing his lips as his eyebrows drew together and Harry’s drew up.

“Why?”

“Because now I have to fucking do something about it, don’t I?” he shouted at them as he backed away into the crowd.

Harry didn’t watch him, but turned to Niall. “The single greatest regret of my life is not getting a video of that. I’d have made a ten minute loop and put it on YouTube.” Harry demonstrated Niall’s shriek and look of terror.

“That good, huh?” Niall said with a big grin.

“ _Priceless_. Did you bring a robe or something?”

Suddenly Louis Tomlinson’s voice flooded the loudspeaker. “Hello, Holmes Chapel, it is a pleasure to meet almost all of you at once. I am Louis Tomlinson, happy Founders Day.” The crowd over by the stage cheered up at him. “At the top of the hour, in precisely… seventeen minutes, I will be at that dunk tank over _there_ by the shivering Irishman and everyone’s favorite baker. You will have one hour to dunk me as many times as you can. And for every dunking I get, I will donate 100 pounds to the cause and you can take a humiliating picture with me. Sounds good?” More cheering. “Harry, love, I know you’re listening. You have seventeen minutes to find me a pair of swim trunks. See you guys then.”

Harry felt like he had been hit by a train. A giant train of affection. He was annoyed by it. And he liked it.

Either way, he set off running like it was going out of style. He found a pair of swim trunks in sixteen minutes.

\--

The sun was shining but there was a light breeze as Louis sat shirtless on the dunk tank seat and regretted all of the life decisions that had led up this moment. So far, he had to donate about £1,400 to the cause. Harry had choked on his laughter the first time Louis went under. He said Louis looked like a traumatized wet cat as he climbed frantically out of the water.

Harry jumped around by the goal, unable to keep still as he cheered every single player on. He screamed and clapped harder than everyone every time a goal was struck. Fucker. Louis didn’t like that Harry’s bright eyes were obscured by sunglasses, as much as he liked seeing Harry wear them.

Louis stayed in the tank long past the hour he promised until everyone had their turn. At long last alone, Harry picked up a football and tossed it from hand to hand. He gave the attendant some money.

“Football with your feet. _Foot_ ball, Harold.”

Harry smiled and said nothing, dropping the ball and pulling the sunglasses up to sit on his headband. He took a ridiculous running start and kicked the ball far over the tank and into the crowd in the distance. Harry’s eyes widened and his mouth fell open. And Louis couldn’t stop laughing. Niall was doubled over as well.

“I’ll get it,” the attendant said glumly and sauntered away.

“You’re laughing at me,” Harry said with narrowed eyes.

“It’s a common human response to things that are _fucking hilarious_ ,” Louis said between giggles.

Harry’s face was an emotionless mask as he fixed his eyes on Louis’ and wouldn’t look away, even as he began to move. It only took a few seconds for Louis to realize what was happening. “Don’t you dare,” he shouted. Harry maintained eye contact and silence as he pressed one finger to the button and sent Louis down into the water for the fifteenth time that afternoon.

“You. Absolute. Shit,” Louis gasped, though he was happy to see the grin return to Harry’s face. He was climbing out when Harry said, “Hold on, don’t I get my picture?”

Harry handed Niall his phone and took his place by the dunk tank. Louis bounced over to the edge of the tank and mouthed, “Video,” to Niall, who smiled and pressed a few buttons.

“Everybody say Harry’s a cheat on three, one two three,” Niall announced.

Louis did as much as he could to send a wave of water over the edge to drench Harry, who sputtered and was paralyzed in shock. He shook out his hair and threw an amused glare at Louis, who figured his job was done.

“Cut, print, check the gate, thank you, Niall, please text that to me instantly,” Louis said and Niall handed Harry’s phone back to him after dutifully sending the video.

Harry snapped at Niall, “Traitor.”

“Worth it,” Niall said and ran off, possibly fearing retribution.

Harry wrapped Louis’ shoulders in a towel, which Louis adjusted immediately to rifle through his hair. Harry stared at him and Louis stopped as soon as he noticed. Harry grabbed Louis’ arms and inspected the tattoos there.

“Hm,” Harry said with a smile. Louis had nothing to say as Harry traced his eyes up and down Louis’ secrets, which were _private_ anddidn’t belong to anyone else but Louis, unlike literally everything else about Louis. Harry didn’t ask any questions and Louis didn’t provide any answers.

“Okay then,” Louis breathed and went to change his clothes. He quickly tweeted the video of Harry’s dousing, thanking the good people of Holmes Chapel for an excellent day.

The festival was wrapping up, venders were covering their items for the next day, and Eleanor was waiting for them when they made it back to Harry’s Corner at last.

“Heard you made quite a _splash_ ,” Eleanor said with wide eyes. Louis thought she had been patiently waiting to unload the pun for quite some time.

Harry tackled her in a hug. “God, Harry, you’re getting me wet,” she said, ducking out of the way. “Out of the gutter, Styles.” She put up a warning finger at the start of his mischievous smirk.

“What do you mean?” Harry said, pulling a stupidly innocent face and kissed her cheek.

Louis felt a surge of affection for the idiots for literally no good reason at all.

“You two are going home to shower and change, and then we’re going bowling,” she announced, kissing each of their cheeks. “No trip to a tragically small town is complete without a cutesy trip to either the movies or a bowling alley. Popular culture has deemed it so.”

“Bowling?” Louis said skeptically.

“The cinema is playing a marathon of all your films,” she explained.

“Bowling! I love bowling. Let us bowl,” Louis said.

Harry smiled and hummed pleasantly driving the car to the bowling alley. Louis sort of wanted to jabber on to fill the silence, but he began to enjoy that they could sit comfortable and just be with each other. Louis was snuggled into a borrowed grey jumper from Harry’s room. He had left his Public Outing Armor on Harry’s bed.

“It was a good day,” Harry said softly, maybe more to himself.

“Take me through it,” Louis answered.

“I got up and baked a lot of stuff. I talked to a lot of people, met a lot of new people. They liked my food, which is great, because I do it for them. For everyone. If they like it, if one cupcake makes two minutes of their day great, then it’s all worth it.”

Louis glanced at the smiling boy. “You’re not normal.”

Harry groaned, long and loud.

“What?” Louis retorted.

“Define what you think a normal person is.”

Louis hesitated. “Well, now I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because then I’ll sound like an idiot.”

“Too late.”

“Fuck off.” Louis narrowed his eyes and fumed, staring out the window, even though he knew Harry was kind of joking.

“Normal means nothing. I’m not any different from you. Because being an individual—which is, by the way, what you meant when you said not normal—is the standard. You’re normal, I’m normal.  Capital N _Normal_ , the label we give each other, it’s an illusion and a lie we tell ourselves to scare us into complacency.”

“Yeah, I thought you’d say some pretentious shit like that.”

“Now it’s your turn to fuck off.” Harry bristled.

“Is complacency now something you’re willing to rail against?”

Harry walled up startlingly fast and Louis regretted it instantly. Louis didn’t like when Harry put up walls; Harry was so expressive and it was one of the things Louis liked most about him. Louis almost berated himself, like it was a conscious _decision_ on his part to piss Harry off at least once a day. He was working out an appropriate response when Harry beat him to it.

“You sent Simon, didn’t you?” he said quietly.

“What?” Louis said, to buy himself more time.

“The guy from Espressoself. I knew it was too good to be true.” Harry sounded… disappointed? Sad? Not angry.

“I did call them, but their bakery guy is honest and brutal and if he said he liked your stuff, then he did,” Louis said carefully.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Harry responded tightly.

Louis’ face burned in frustration. “Why not?”

“How am I supposed to know if I deserve a job on my own merits if everybody has to run the risk of pissing off Louis Tomlinson?”

Louis’ eyes narrowed quickly. “Don’t put yourself down,” he barked. “You are brilliant and you deserve the world and you’re an even bigger idiot than I previously thought if you turn down an opportunity you are worthy of just because I know some people and I want them to see in you what I see in you. Talent. Potential.”

Harry seemed to soften but said nothing until they pulled into the bowling alley parking lot. Louis wasn’t sure why he felt he needed to do everything and anything in the world for this kid if he was going to be ungrateful about it. It would hit Harry like a goddamn ton of bricks the day he finds out that talent isn’t enough to succeed. As frustrating as it may be, knowing the right people is equally important.

“I am truly shit at bowling,” Louis confessed.

“Don’t put yourself down,” Harry mocked, which prompted Louis to make an obscene gesture inappropriate for the family friendly environment.

“I haven’t been bowling in… ever? I think I did some bowling for a movie once.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I can’t remember what it was called, though. One of the early ones, when I was a kid.”

Harry gave a small smile. “I wonder what it was.”

Louis narrowed his eyes. “You know what it’s called, don’t you?” he guessed.

“ _Live While We’re Young._ ”

“How many times have you seen it?”

“Seven.”

“You little shit! You said all those DVDs belonged to Eleanor.”

“They do. But you know we share everything.”

“You’re a _fan_ ,” Louis breathed, delighted. “And here I thought you were too good for me.”

“Never,” Harry said quietly and inadvertently stopped Louis’ heart. “Eleanor isn’t here,” he said, frowning as he scanned the lanes.

Louis’ phone rang. “Oh, here we are,” he showed Harry the caller ID before answering.

“By now, you will have noticed that I am indeed not at the bowling alley.”

“Yes,” Louis said carefully.

“I am fulfilling yet another romantic comedy trope for you, Louis, my dear.”

“What is that?”

“The one where I set you up on a date by abandoning you with the guy you have a crush on, dumdum.”

“Eleanor,” Louis said strangled as his heart began to race.

“You were there that night I was sick. It wasn’t a dream.”

“Yes,” he squeezed out. A date. A date.

“And you spent all night with Harry. You like him.”

“Of course I do,” Louis snapped.

“But you _like-like_ Harry, don’t you? You guys give each other the sickest googly eyes. I’ve been watching you for days.”

“What are you, fucking eleven?”

“Twelve.”

“What gives you the right?” Louis practically shouted and then felt a hand on his shoulder. He glared up at Harry, whose face was pulled into a concerned frown, with the Louis Wrinkle between the eyebrows making another appearance.

He wanted to kiss it away.

Fuck, was he in trouble. Goddamn Eleanor.

\--


	8. Chapter 8

Harry wasn’t sure what to say or that he should even say anything. He rubbed his thumb softly on Louis’ shoulder, hoping he wasn’t going too far.

At any and every point of the last few days, Harry wanted to kiss him. It was a problem. He tried avoiding him, being the most platonic friend around, steadily shipping Louis and Eleanor. And all of it was bullshit.

Dangerous bullshit because he couldn’t pine away over this guy who by no rights could even belong to him and who could leave their lives just as quickly as he entered them.

Harry was surprised when Louis’ face fell from anger to worry as he raised a hand and smoothed over the space between Harry’s eyebrows.

“You’re not allowed a Louis wrinkle.”

“A what?” Harry asked, but Louis was pulled into the phone conversation and ended it quickly.

“Eleanor’s not coming. Let us bowl,” he said, still frowning and Harry was immediately worried.

 _What gives you the right_ bounced around in his head for a minute before Harry was certain what Louis was feeling was shame and anger for having been dumped on Harry. He wondered what he might have done wrong.

Harry collected their shoe rentals and some socks from a vending machine for Louis, who didn’t wear socks or even own socks, which Harry thought was completely ridiculous and informed him as such. Louis balked at the idea of vending machine socks (“A sign of humanity’s imminent demise, that, clothing from a fucking _vending machine”_ ), but put them on anyway. Louis had set up the board with their names.

“Harold and the Tommo,” Harry read.

Louis’ eyes lit up. “And that’s the name of our band!”

Both of them were truly shit at bowling, but it was fun. Louis eased away from his anger almost immediately, which confused Harry yet again. But he went with it, because that’s what Harry did.

“I dare you to go bowl in their lane,” Harry said, pointing over at a small team of crusty old men at the other end of the alley. They were the same crusty old men who glared at them when they cheered too loud for gutterballs. “You’re Louis Tomlinson, they’ll forgive you.”

“Haven’t we traded on my fame enough today?” Louis said with cocked eyebrows.

“Earlier was for charity, it didn’t count. Take my dare or Eleanor will announce to the world via Twitter that you are a coward.”

Louis set his face into a mischievous grin, which Harry thought was his best kind of face, except for perhaps the crinkle-eyed smile.

Louis usurped half a frame from the crusty old men with admirable precision. He bowled a gutter ball, threw his hands up in celebration and shouted as he ran all the way back to Harry—slipping every once in a while on the slick floor—and crashed into him. Harry was delighted about this action for the second time that day.

They stayed for hours but only played three games, due to the serious amount of fucking around and eating of terrible bowling alley food they did.

Harry was comfortable. And enthused. He enjoyed watching Louis find increasingly strange and idiotic ways to roll the ball down the lane. He was happy when Louis leaned, somewhat hesitantly, on Harry when they took a second hotdog break. He missed Louis when he disappeared, which is incidentally ridiculous, because like what was he planning on doing, accompanying Louis to all future restroom trips?

A bored voice spoke over the alley. “This song is dedicated to Harold. Welcome to Cosmic Bowling.”

The lights turned off and were replaced by black lights and neon lights. “Bohemian Rhapsody” flooded the speakers as Louis bounded back to the lane.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to get this bowling alley to sing with me,” Harry said from where he was seated.

“Oh good! You remember. I was worried you were too drunk.”

“I wasn’t that drunk. Niall thought I was pissed and tried to take advantage of me. Well, he did take advantage, technically, but I knew about it and I wanted to make him happy. He wasn’t very attentive to how much I was actually drinking.”

“So the slurring and the stumbling and the singing were a performance.”

“Yep. You could set me up with your agent, like.” Harry smiled easy.

Louis leaned in closely with a look on his face Harry couldn’t decipher. “And when you pulled me into your bed, were you not very drunk then either?”

Harry froze. Louis stared at him, eyes locked, and Harry knew he wouldn’t be saved from this.

“No. I wasn’t.”

“So why did you do it?”

“I needed you,” he said firmly because it was the truth and it couldn’t be stopped or helped.

“That’s what I thought.” Louis slid into the chair next to him and began to remove his bowling shoes. “Let’s go.”

Harry blinked. He said the wrong thing. “Lou.”

“Let’s go,” Louis said calmly. Harry said nothing and felt the world crash around him. Which was a melodramatic thought, but Harry didn’t care. He ruined everything.

He followed dumbly as Louis led him back to the car. He put a hand on the driver’s side door, but Louis grabbed it and turned him around. _Here it comes_ , Harry thought.

“Can I kiss you?” Louis asked politely.

“Yes, please,” Harry said without thinking.

And they kissed. And Harry really liked it. And Louis was really _very_ good at it.

When they came up for air some eight years later, Harry needed a few moments before the fog cleared in his brain. “You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were mad.”

“You constantly scare the shit out of me. So.” He shrugged a little.

“Romantic.”

They kissed again. It was probably like fireworks.

“What about Eleanor?”

“She set us up.”

“Cheeky monkey.”

More kissing. And leaning against the car and each other. And tugging of Harry’s hair. He didn’t mind anything (especially not the hair pulling, which, okay, is now apparently a thing that _works for him_ ) because nothing was on his mind but the task at hand, and the task at hand didn’t bother him at all. Even when Louis broke apart to scowl and swear and Harry didn’t know what that meant but he didn’t care and pulled the other back to crash against him again.

“Fuck,” Louis said for maybe the fourth time.

“I’ve had guys swear before, Lou. I know I’m really good. But they usually don’t sound quite so _distressed_.”

Louis scrunched his face. “I really like you. And I particularly like kissing you.”

“That’s excellent news. Is that what’s distressing you?”

“You really do scare me.”

Harry’s face fell just a bit. “In, like, a good way…?”

“Mostly.” He fixed his eyes on Harry’s collar bone. “I’m not a strong person. At least where it counts. But I feel like I could be. You make me want to be strong. I like who I am with you and I like who I am because of you. When I look at you, I feel potential, and it’s terrifying and exhilarating at the same time, fuck this is really hard to do without a script. Am I—is this okay?”

“It was a little one sided, but we can work on that,” Harry said honestly, running a hand through Louis’ hair to smooth where Harry had thoroughly ruffled it.

“You don’t have any big revelations you want to share so I don’t feel awkward and alone?”

“The person being romantically speeched at never has to do a speech of their own. That’s just how it goes.”

“Double standard,” Louis said, pressing his face into Harry’s chest.

Harry hummed with delight. “I was probably gone for you when you sang with me in the litchen. And every moment after, I was falling even harder. And it was a problem because I thought you and Eleanor… I was ashamed of myself—although apparently not _too_ ashamed because I did jump you pretty quickly—and I didn’t want to hurt you or Eleanor.”

“Or yourself.”

“Yeah, I guess myself too.” The thought hadn’t occurred to Harry.

And then they were kissing again. _Honestly_.

People were coming and going from the bowling alley. Louis threw a worried glance at them.

“Perhaps we should, just, not make out in front of the bowling alley,” Harry suggested.

“And go back to yours? Harry, I’m not that kind of girl.” Louis feigned scandalized.

“I am,” Harry said low. Louis’ face turned to shock and not a little bit of excitement. A loud bark of laughter erupted from Harry. “ _The look on your face_.”

Louis immediately turned sour. “Fuck off,” he said, a light smile betraying him as they got into the car.

Louis’ phone chimed a while later and he removed his hand from Harry’s to check it. “It’s Liam,” he announced as though Harry was supposed to know who that is, beyond being the future recipient of one cardboard Louis Tomlinson and someone Louis talks about constantly making upset. Louis stiffened as he read the text and began working away at his phone.

“Fuck,” he said softly. Harry looked over but couldn’t see what was on the screen. A small video played. Harry recognized the sound as the altercation between Louis and the paparazzo from earlier that day. Louis hastily stopped the video and studied his phone more.

“What is it?” Harry said, pulling his eyes from the road again.

Louis’ face was stone cold until he began to breathe heavily and still he read the phone.

“Lou,” Harry said, reaching out to him.

“Stop the car.”

“We’re not home yet.”

“Harry. Stop the car.”

Harry pulled over and Louis burst out of the car, his phone clutched tightly in his hands. Harry scrambled out after him. “Lou, what’s going on?”

“I can’t do it,” Louis practically growled and set off walking in the opposite direction.

Harry followed, feeling uncomfortably like a lost puppy. “Is it that guy? Because fuck that guy, Lou.” Harry clung to the boy’s name, hoping it would pull him back.

“I can’t do it. Not to you. Or to myself.”

“I don’t care what people say.”

Louis turned around quickly, stopping Harry with the dark look on his face. “I have to.” He turned and walked away.

“Wait,” Harry shouted, and Louis stopped.

“No. I can’t do this. You can’t be with me. I won’t let it happen.”

“What are you even talking about, Lou. Just get in the car, we can talk about it.” Harry moved for him.

“Please stop.”

“Lou.”

Louis turned to look at him again. “Don’t follow me, Harry,” he said, hard and unforgiving.

“Niall’s is that way,” Harry said dumbly, pointing, and Louis corrected his path.

Harry tried to tell himself what he had seen on Louis’ face was regret or pain. The fact of the matter was, Louis was all talk and no follow through. He wanted to be strong, but he didn’t trust Harry to be strong with him.

Harry didn’t drive angry. He didn’t slam the door.

Because, yes, okay, _yes_ , it was kind of immediately stupid of him to fall so hard for a guy that he had met less than a week ago. Even if that guy just fit, fit into his life so quickly and easily and naturally. Louis kissed _him_ and it was everything.

He stood quietly in the doorway, looking up at Eleanor, who was seated on the stairs and frowning at her phone until she looked up at Harry.

“It was Louis,” she said, holding the phone. “He said—”

“Did he ask you not to tell me?”

Eleanor paused. “Yes.”

“Then you should respect his confidence and desire for privacy because you’re his friend too and it would be unfair to put you in that position. I am fine. I made a mistake but I am fine,” he said almost robotically, pushing his way up the stairs and into his room. He spotted Louis’ beanie and sunglasses on his bed. He gingerly collected them and shoved them into a drawer, completely unable to handle their very existence at the moment.

He didn’t know what to look for, so he typed Louis’ name into Google.

 _Louis Tomlinson Attacks Reporter_ read a headline. Harry clicked on it.

The article made it look as though the attack was unwarranted and concluded with speculation as to who Harry was. The comments below the article were expressing their disappointment in Louis and how they thought he was on an uncontrollable downward spiral. Harry’s face burned in anger.

He clicked another article cover Louis’ trip to Holmes Chapel from _Heat_. A screencap of Louis’ Twitter stopped him. It was the picture of Harry and Cardboard Louis and was captioned, “my new favorite possession x”.

Harry wondered briefly, _did he mean the cutout or me_.

A video of Louis splashing Harry and a few fan-taken photos of Harry and Louis standing close to each other were embedded in the article as well, accompanied by fresh speculation about Louis and Harry’s relationship.

He opened a new tab but willed himself to stop immediately. His hands, the traitors that they were, fell easily over the keys as he typed _Harry Styles_ and hit enter.

\--

“How’s my favorite OT3?” Niall chirped from where he was playing a video game in the common area as soon as Louis walked in. Louis nearly ran to his room.

He had fuckity fucking fucked everything up the second he put his hands on Harry Styles, _noted_ _terrorist Harry Styles_ , terrorizing Louis all night with goofiness and fondness and earnestness, and there was no chance Harry didn’t know what he was doing. That he didn’t know he was slowly torturing Louis every time he knelt down by that kid two lanes over and studiously listened to the kid’s bowling tips after it was clear to the kid Harry was completely incompetent in the game. That he didn’t think Louis couldn’t just gloss over the fact that Harry said he _needed him_. That he didn’t have a Grand Master Plan of Seduction via one fucking trip to a bowling alley. And that was already on top of the other groundwork he had been laying all week.

Louis kissed him and Harry kissed him back and it was everything and nothing else really mattered because Louis was _happy_ , like pure and simple happiest-in-his-whole-life-happy in those few minutes, and he didn’t want to regret it. But reality hits like a motherfucker.

Never go on the internet. You never go on the internet. Rule number one, never read anything on the internet.

 _Get on The Daily Mail and call me as soon as you can_ , the first text from Liam had read. Followed by two missed phone calls when he was in the bowling alley and a final _Louis call me instantly_ that had chimed in the car.

Louis paced his room and Liam answered almost immediately.

“Did you see it?” Liam asked.

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“It’s not as it looks. Of course the video doesn’t show that fucking prick harassing Harry. That piece of shit.”

“Who’s Harry?”

Louis’ breath caught in his chest. “Eleanor’s friend.” Harry. Harry. Harry.

“You can’t—you shouldn’t have hit the guy, Lou.”

Louis stopped in his tracks. Lou. Lou. Lou. “No shit, Liam,” he snapped.

“ _Ask me if I give a motherfuck_!” Zayn shouted in the background.

“ _Zayn_ ,” Liam hissed to him.

“Sorry,” Zayn lied.

“We’re doing damage _control_ ,” Liam explained to Louis and maybe also to Zayn. “We were working under the assumption that you have not gone completely insane. Management is going crazy. The nightly entertainment shows here played the thing on repeat, as though they’d glean something new from twenty seconds of you swearing profusely.”

“What are they saying?” Louis asked.

“The usual. You’re reckless, violent. Possibly on drugs. That you are cheating on Eleanor with this kid--”

“Eleanor and I were never dating. I’ll tell them that.” Louis fumed. Of course he was considered romantically linked to literally anyone he’d ever been photographed with.

And of course. Typical, typical, complete overreaction over nothing. The types of “news” outlets that said these things were never reputable. But no crowd really ever took a moment to consider reputability before believing a story. They _wanted_ scandal.

Louis wasn’t even sorry. He wasn’t sorry at all about any of it. He was on _private time_ and private time belonged to nobody else, least of all fucking paparazzi.

“No. You say nothing until we’ve worked out a strategy. No Twitter either.”

“I’ll come home. Right now. I’ll get on the first flight from Heathrow.”

“I’ll call Stan. Keep your mobile by you, we’ll keep ringing you.”

“Yeah.”

Liam hesitated. “Are you all right?”

“I’ve been taught how to safely throw a punch, Liam.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Louis attempted and failed to breathe evenly.

“Louis.”

“What.”

“We’re here for you,” Liam said quietly, as though divulging a secret.

A tear escaped down Louis’ cheek for the first time that night. “Thanks.”

Louis gave himself five minutes to wallow. His hands clutched at his hair as a scream erupted from him.

He was a coward but he was doing the right thing. He was protecting Harry at all costs. In a few weeks, he would be forgotten. He wouldn’t have articles written about him. Nobody would invade his privacy. Nobody would anonymously attack him on the internet.

Louis wouldn’t be the cause of his pain. He couldn’t get the look of Harry’s total fear and anxiety out of his mind, especially now that the whole world had footage of it.

He didn’t take to Twitter in a righteous fury. He didn’t call to demand the pap’s head on a plate.

Because yes, okay, _yes_ , also, he can’t date a guy. He can’t. Louis is an object. Objects have specifically designed purposes, dictated by their creators. Harry Styles wasn’t his specifically designed purpose, as dictated by management. And he hated himself for admitting it.

He quietly packed his things and walked downstairs to Niall.

“I need to get to Heathrow.”

“I don’t think the trains are running this late,” he said with a small grin, though how anybody could be grinning at a time like this was beyond Louis.

“I will pay you a thousand pounds to drive me to Heathrow right now.”

Niall’s smile faltered. “I don’t want your money, mate.”

“Fine,” Louis said and walked out, irritated at having the phrase thrown at him twice in a day.

“Wait, are you in trouble?” Niall ran after him.

“Yes.”

“All right. I’ll get my keys.” Niall looked at him deeply, with concern. The pain in Louis’ chest reminded him of why he didn’t do this sort of thing. He didn’t have attachments.

“Awkward silence or radio?” Niall asked as they drove off.

“Talk to me about football.”

“I can definitely do that.”

Niall did that for three hours. Louis didn’t sleep but he sat and listened as peacefully as he could while the sounds of Niall’s enthusiasm washed over him.

Niall nodded to himself after a few minutes of quiet. “There’re a lot of real wankers in the world.” Louis grunted his agreement. “But you happened upon three of the good ones. Before you ask, I’m the third good one.”

“Yes, you are,” Louis agreed quickly.

“It sure looks like we’re three nice freaks swimming in a tank full of shark wankers, but I think you’ll be surprised there are more people like us in the world.”

“Okay,” Louis said carefully.

“You are in trouble with Eleanor and Harry, are you not?”

Louis rubbed his face. “Sort of, yeah.”

“That’s what I thought. I’m what they call _intuitive_. It’s what makes me a great bartender.”

“You’re a shit bartender.” Louis thought of how he never seemed to actually work the entire night Louis was there.

“To each his own,” Niall said, as though that solved everything. “I say these things because you walk around sometimes with this look of complete bewilderment when people are, like, nice to you.”

“Can we not talk about football?”

“No. It’s two am and I’m driving you literally across the fuckin’ _country_.”

“Fair point.”

“ _Anyway_ if you opened up a little more, you might be able to find more than three good ones. And it’s really important to remember where you belong.”

“I belong in LA,” Louis said immediately, and he felt that was the truth. He belonged to being an actor. And there was nothing at all magical about small towns, no matter what the movies said. Small towns were practically suffocating.

“I was speaking more metaphorical belonging than physical belonging, but it’s great that you’ve got that bit sorted. What I’m saying is you belong with people who care about you and who appreciate you. And not shark wankers. That’s the end of my sage advice, incidentally, and now we return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Not because you asked me, though, but because I was going to be done anyway.”

Louis closed his eyes and refused to think of anything the remainder of the car ride. Niall pulled up to the drop off area in front of the airport and got out with him. They stood together looking through the doors.

“Seems like I should give you a hug or something,” Niall said. “It’s not as fancy a sendoff as you probably would have had.”

“Seems like.” Niall hugged him and Louis patted his back awkwardly. “I’ll send you a check for the school, okay? I won’t forget.”

“’Course, mate, when you can,” Niall said easily. Louis wondered briefly what it would be like to be as easy as Niall.

They stood for another moment. “Niall, I um…” Louis couldn’t think of anything to say, but Niall was already climbing into the car.

“All right, see ya. Well. Probably not,” he called with a smile and drove off.

Louis didn’t really know what day it was or what time it was when he finally stumbled into his home in Los Angeles. He saw Zayn in his kitchen and sort of collapsed into him with a hug.

Zayn was shocked for a moment but fell quickly and easily into the hug as well, wrapping his arms and softly rubbing his back. “This is our first hug.”

“I’m trying something new. Don’t talk about it. Don’t look at me.”

“Okay.”

Zayn held him until Louis pulled away. This was his new favorite Zayn, the one with quiet, unassuming eyes, an affectionate smile, and a warm hug.

Louis wondered what was happening to him.

“I made a mistake,” he said quietly.

“What happened, babe?”

“I almost fell in love.”

“With Eleanor?”

“With Harry.”

Zayn nodded without judgment. Louis felt like he was going to collapse. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Should you talk about it?”

Louis sighed deep. They adjourned to the living room sofa and he spilled everything. Zayn, to his credit yet again, didn’t lecture or comment or judge or frown. He simply said, “What can I do to help you?”

“I have to work. Or I’ll drown.”

“Okay. We do the work.” Zayn stood, as if work was going to happen right then instead of sleep, which was honestly what was _really_ going to happen.

“Zayn.” Louis felt like an idiot asking, but he needed to know. “Are we friends?”

“Do you want to be friends?”

“Desperately.”

Zayn smiled big, which rubbed off on Louis. He pulled Louis off the couch and into another hug. “Then we’re friends.”

“You’re a marshmallow, Zayn Malik,” Louis said into Zayn’s shoulder.

“Have you been watching _Veronica Mars_?”

“I don’t think I know Veronica Mars. Have I met her?”

\--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like you guys. The next chapter is the last. Hngnfgnnhfgdhh.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Tony's Day! Have some Broadway. This is the conclusion, I hope it seems right.

Louis did the work. Early morning to late evenings, he trained for his upcoming audition. He went on carefully selected interviews to explain his violent behavior. He was largely forgiven once fan footage of the encounter surfaced and showed the situation a little clearer. Louis still didn’t like having to explain himself, because he didn’t owe anyone shit. But that’s what Zayn said was the right thing to do, and Louis believed him.

He texted Eleanor constantly, practically dying with relief that she harbored no ill will. He had said goodbye over the phone and lightly explained himself. Eleanor didn’t ask questions and she rarely talked about Harry.

A few weeks after he left, she had confided in Louis that she found Harry reading articles about himself on the internet and fuming over articles that attacked Louis. Harry claimed it was not a big deal, but Eleanor shut it down immediately. Louis almost called Harry then and there, but didn’t. Harry, the big idiot, was going to undo everything Louis had done by letting him go. Harry was supposed to be free of Louis’ shitty obligation to belong to strangers and paparazzi and critics who decided whether he should live or die (metaphorically, he supposed) based on fickle whims. Harry was too good for them. And Louis.

Eleanor had been on Twitter, constantly defending Louis and the very platonic nature of their friendship and imploring for Harry’s privacy. Zayn was calling Eleanor weekly to talk over what she was and wasn’t allowed to say. She took it like a pro. Eventually Harry was forgotten by the media at large and Louis didn’t have to answer any questions about him and lie about the very platonic nature of their friendship. Louis didn’t have the think about kissing him so much anymore.

Louis’ management quickly tried to fix him up with a new girl, which Louis repeatedly declined and Liam never pushed him into it like he used to. Liam was quieter and frowned more and Louis tried not to think about it. It was his go-to attitude, not thinking about it, for everything these days so he didn’t get buried under all the guilt he felt.

Three days before the _Cabaret_ audition, Liam was fired from his Management. Louis was in a rage.

Liam showed up at Louis’ house with a box of the things from his office under one arm, Cardboard Louis under the other, and a modest sized bottle of gas station-bought alcohol.

“It is what it is,” Liam said soberly. He had yet to even touch the alcohol and it had been an hour.

Louis made a sour face at that line. “They have no fucking right!”

“Technically—”

“Cut the shit, Li. They have no _right_.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do now.” Liam’s sad brown eyes were slowly murdering Louis.

“Whatever you want to. You’re free.”

“I don’t know what I want to do. I’m Louis Tomlinson’s manager. That’s who I am.”

“What are you talking about, that’s who you are?”

“You define me, Louis. My life is my career and you define my career. By the transitive property of mathematics, you define me.”

The transitive property _what_. “Liam, don’t say that.” Mostly it made Louis uncomfortable to be considered the center of Liam’s world. To be responsible for somebody’s identity. “Don’t say that at all. You’re _you_ and you’re great and you don’t need me because of the two of us, I very clearly need you. I am dangerously dependent on you.”

Liam waved it off and Louis felt frustrated, like he wasn’t being heard. “Honestly, I’m just--I’m surprised I didn’t get the sack when you started getting the tattoos,” Liam said.

“You got in trouble because of the tattoos?”

Liam shook his head but Louis knew it was a yes. “That wasn’t as big a deal as this is now, plus all this stuff for the last year. And I let all of _this_ happen. They don’t want you in _Cabaret_. They want you in _You and I._ And they want you with Laura or Beth or Anna.”

“I let it happen. I want this show.” Louis also didn’t want Laura or Beth or Anna. He wanted _Harry_ , but he was supposed to be forgetting all about that for the good of both of them. If he couldn’t have Harry, he wasn’t planning on having anyone.

“I’m your _manager._ I’m supposed to get you to do the interviews and say the right things and do the right things and not wreck cars and punch reporters and scandalize people at the Oscars and.” Liam sighed. “Now what do I do.”

Louis flared in anger. Of course they would blame Liam because they think he’s in control. That Louis has no autonomy. Louis knew what he had to do. Louis owed it to Liam and to himself and to Harry to be strong and do something about it. To be strong.

“Fuck it. I’m firing them.”

“I could become an explorer,” Liam said to himself, lying out on the sofa. Then he shot back up. “Wait, what did you just say?” His eyes widened so far it couldn’t possibly be safe for his face. “You can’t.”

“Watch me,” Louis growled, snatching his keys and phone and heading for the door. He stormed back into the living room quickly. “I need a ride. I don’t have a car.”

Liam shook out of his befuddled haze. “Right.”

Louis could pretend all he wanted that he was trying to protect Harry when he left him. But he was mostly scared. Scared to follow through on the promise of strength. Scared to face Harry when he couldn’t go through with it. Scared of disappointing both Harry and himself by being complacent. All sorts of selfish fear. He was above all else scared of giving himself to Harry.

But he fucked everything up with Harry and there was no going back to fix it now. There was only moving forward and doing what he could to make sure he didn’t fuck everything up going forward. He could do right by Liam, who had supported him through the years, who had been a rock. And he could do right by himself. By doing the most reckless thing of his reckless adulthood.

 _I’ve been a real fucking tit¸_ he texted to Eleanor as Liam drove.

 ** _This I know_** ¸ she texted back quickly.

_did I break him?_

**_Check your ego, Tomlinson. Harry’s life doesn’t revolve around you._ **

_sorry, you’re right. I’m a tit. just tell me if he’s okay now_

**_Sometimes he wears that beanie you left. Although maybe he thinks it was his._ **

**_He’s okay. Mostly embarrassed._ **

_embarrassed?_

**_You should talk to him._ **

_I can’t_

**_Yeah, I thought you’d say that._ **

_you don’t think that would just hurt him more?_

**_Oh, my boys. You are both complete fucking idiots._ **

As Louis thought before, if he couldn’t have Harry, he wasn’t planning on having anyone. Which he admitted, on good days (this day was a good day), is fucking _dumb_ because it’s unhealthy and unproductive and unfair to himself. Louis knew he wasn’t spending enough time on himself. That’s what you’re supposed to do in these types of situations, you’re supposed to _spend time finding yourself_.

Louis was confusing himself. At the end of the day, Louis wanted to be happy with himself. To put forth the best, most honest version of himself. One that he could be proud of in the future. And nobody was responsible for making that happen other than Louis fucking Tomlinson _himself_.

That’s who he was. _Louis Fucking Tomlinson!!!!_ And Louis Fucking Tomlinson (name change pending) gets what he wants. Starting now, at least. Probably.

Louis Fucking Tomlinson wanted control of his life. He wanted to sing and dance on the goddamn Great White Way. He wanted to be good to the people who were good to him, even though he knew he didn’t deserve them. He wanted Harry—fuck, no, that’s _done_. He wanted to be enthusiastic. He wanted to breathe a little bit easier. He wanted to take responsibility for himself.

Liam parked by the curb in front of the offices he left only a few hours ago. Louis jumped out of the car and Liam was quick to follow.

“You shouldn’t do this. The retribution will—”

“Do you have my back?”

“Of course,” Liam said, startled.

“Zayn?”

“He would follow you to the end of the earth. We both would.”

Louis knelt in front of Liam and grabbed Liam’s hand. “Liam Payne, will you be my manager?”

“Get off the ground.” Liam looked around nervously.

“Will you be my manager?”

“Yes, of course, I will.”

“For richer or, more than likely, poorer, in contract violation and in health, so long as we both shall live in Los Angeles and/or New York?”

“I do. Please get up.”

Louis stood up. “Then that’s all I need. Even if I don’t get _Cabaret_ , this is the right thing to do.” He clapped a hand to Liam’s neck fondly. “You stay here, love.”

“Why?”

“Because your sad puppy eyes make me want to behave. And I plan to light that office on fire.”

Liam looked panicked, Louis Wrinkle in full force.

“Metaphorically. It’s a metaphorical fire. Dear god, Payno.”

“I don’t want you to get in any more trouble. You don’t have to do this for me.”

“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it _for me_ ,” Louis said, throwing all of his mock sincerity and rom com eyes at the cheesy line until Liam finally rolled his eyes. Louis smiled and slapped Liam lightly on the cheek. “That’s better.”

Louis strutted toward the building. No turning back now. Probably.

People would hate him.

 _I don’t care what people say_ , Harry had said.

Well then, neither would Louis.

\--

Harry was happy living in New York. He had committed to six months in the Times Square Espressoself shop, working on perfecting his baking skills in the large store’s bakery. He baked for thousands of people a day. Sometimes he wandered up to the front and took care of customers when it was busy to get any and all feedback he could from them.

He took classes regularly. He was caught in an unbelievable culture shock. Turns out he knew little to nothing about the actual chemistry of baking or the practical application of baking en masse. The work was hard and time consuming and full of mistakes and Harry loved every minute of it. It was fulfilling in every sense and he was thankful every day he wasn’t a total twat about calling Simon.

The only issue with New York was Louis Tomlinson. More specifically, just his face, which was plastered in almost every subway stop all the way to fucking Washington Heights. It was a dangerous and seductive looking photo of him, looking like a punk Peter Pan, all windswept hair and eyeliner and angular features. Harry didn’t know that was a look that really worked for him, but it was, it _really worked for him_. But Harry wondered really if it was just Louis doing all the work. Either way, it took a few weeks before Harry was able to get over it.

Because he was over it. He wasn’t going to be that kid from _My Week With Marilyn_.

Even though he did every once in a while catch himself imagining Louis walking through the doors of his store, hopping the Espressoself counter, pulling Harry close to him by the apron, kissing him until he didn’t remember how to breathe. And then subsequently groveling for hours.

But the truth was something different. He was embarrassed about practically throwing himself at a straight boy, one he had only known for a week. Embarrassed for having spent an immeasurable amount of time thinking about him. Embarrassed about the amount of terrible things he had read about himself on the internet until everyone forgot about him. Embarrassed that he embarrassed Louis.

Embarrassed on behalf of the goddamn _Cabaret_ marketing team.

But he was over it and still happy and sort of flirting with the guy at the M&M Store. And Eleanor was in town this week. They tore up the town, Harry finally able to do all of the sightseeing he had missed out on. Harry had his best girl and his best job and his best town.

“Zayn got me two tickets to _Cabaret_ ,” she said as casually as possible from her spot atop a counter in his new litchen, which was even tinier than the litchen back home. Her eyes were resolutely stuck to Harry’s laptop.

“I can’t, El,” Harry said, scrubbing a pot a little harder than necessary.

“You have until I get out of the shower to change your mind. Wear a goddamn tie, we are dressing for _the theatre_.” She hopped down and set the laptop pointed directly at Harry. He waited until he heard the bathroom door close before he looked at it.

It was a video titled _Side by Side by Susan Blackwell: Louis Tomlinson_. Louis was puttering around a kitchen with a lady who was asking him the weirdest interview questions as they made cupcakes.

“You clearly know nothing about baking,” the interviewer said.

“Not a damn thing. I know a few bakers, one tried to take me under his wing once.”

“Nothing stuck?”

“Absolutely nothing. But I really like cupcakes,” he said, frosting a cupcake carefully. His determination was devastatingly cute. Louis was using the swirling technique Harry had taught him.

“God, these are terrible,” he said, after the video jump cut to the two of them eating their cupcakes.

“Acting, yes, singing, yes, dancing, yes, baking, never again,” she said. Louis nodded furiously.

Harry didn’t want to but he smiled anyway.

“It’s time, are you ready?” she asked him, an odd non-sequitur to Harry.

Louis made a face. “No, I’m not ready.”

The woman smeared a little frosting on his cheek and licked it up slowly. Harry’s face scrunched up immediately. _Nope_ , he thought.

He clicked on a video in the sidebar: _Louis Tomlinson Talks Cabaret, Eleanor, and Fame_. Louis had nothing but glowing things to say about his Broadway debut. Harry thought he could feel Louis’ enthusiasm through the screen.

When the interviewer asked about Eleanor, his face fell into the passive mask Harry recognized too well. Harry could tell this wasn’t supposed to be part of the interview.

“Eleanor is great. We talk weekly. I’m very grateful to count her as my friend. And she thinks I’m all right.”

“Is it weird for her to have a friend who’s a world-famous celebrity?”

Louis made an impatient face. “Eleanor has a friend who’s a _person_. I’m a person now, and I’ll be a person after everyone’s forgotten about me. My job doesn’t mean anything more to our friendship than hers does. I love my job and I’m very fortunate to have people who love the work I do. I do it for them. Fame isn’t a factor I’m interested in.”

“That’s a very easy thing for a famous person to say.”

“Yes, it is,” Louis said levelly. “But I’d rather be remembered for being a good person to the people I love and appreciative of everyone who is good to me. If I have to be remembered at all.”

Harry snapped the laptop closed. “Shit,” he said quietly and went to change for the show. Story of his fucking life.

Literally nothing could have prepared him for the opening number of _Cabaret_ , which featured Louis, in all his pseudo-punk Peter Pan glory and little to no clothing, giving a dangerous and seductive performance. So maybe the poster should have prepared him but the poster didn’t feature his _hips_. Louis worked his way with ease through the sensual choreography with the scantily clad men and women of the chorus. Harry too easily imagined himself up there with them being manipulated by the puppet master Louis Tomlinson, echoes of the song Louis had sung for them back home.

Harry didn’t remember enough of _Cabaret_ to know whether or not the Emcee was actually a dangerous character or if he considered Louis a dangerous presence.

Eleanor casually fanned herself with her playbill and Harry casually adjusted himself in his seat.

Among other emotions, Harry felt pride and affection surge in his chest. Louis was good and comfortable and natural and, shit, like, _good_. Harry almost resented the amount of stage time Sally Bowles and the actual plot had, if it meant keeping Louis offstage or out of focus. This is really what it meant to see Louis at home.

Harry took several calming breaths outside the theatre during intermission while Eleanor volunteered to queue for the bar. He was being watched the very man the phrase _tall, dark and, handsome_ was created for as he was smoking a cigarette next to one of those damned posters.

Harry smiled at him. Why the fuck not. The man smiled back hesitantly and continued to stare. “Good show,” Harry said conversationally.

“Hasn’t gotten old yet,” said the man, smiling easier.

“Have you seen it before?”

“Seven or eight times. I’ve lost track.”

“Oh, wow.” Harry wasn’t sure what to make of that.

He was saved by Eleanor, who popped only her head through the doors outside. “Haz, I’m legally unable to bring these drinks outsi—Zayn!” She turned her smile on Harry’s stranger.

“Hey, babe, glad you made it,” Zayn said.

“I’d come hug you, but,” she said.

“Open container laws, yeah. I’ll catch you after. I’ll take you back to him.”

“Cheers. At your leisure, Hazza.” Eleanor nodded and popped back into the theatre.

“You’re Louis’ Zayn, then?” Harry said lightly.

“Oh no, do _not_ refer to me that way. If he gets wind of it, I’ll be _Louis’ Zayn_ for an eternity. Possessive little shit.”

Harry laughed.

“Are you Louis’ Harold?” he said quietly.

Maybe his heart skipped a beat. “For better or for worse,” he said without thinking and immediately regretted his choice of words. Harry backed away toward the lobby. “Don’t tell him I’m here. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”

Harry disappeared into the house and squeezed his way back to Eleanor as the lights dimmed and the orchestra started up. He took an appreciative sip of whatever Eleanor had gotten him.

She leaned over and whispered, “Everybody in this theatre is going to need a good wank after this show. I’ve never experienced so much collective unresolved sexual tension in my life.”

Harry snorted the drink up his nose and sputtered and laughed with Eleanor so loud they got a couple of shushes.

“I’ve got dibs on the shower first then,” he whispered and they collapsed into hushed giggles like the grownups they were.

Eleanor found Zayn after the show and he brought her backstage to meet with Louis in his dressing room. Harry insisted he would wait out by the stage door for her so they could go home together.

There was a barricade around the stage door where a small mountain of fans waited for the cast. Harry stood as far from the door as he could while still in viewing range. He was easily as enthusiastic as the crowd. He’d had a great time and hadn’t, after the initial shock, been too bothered by Louis. Even if every time Louis sort of brushed his lips over another actor’s, Harry wanted to shout.

Louis exited last, to the raucous cheer of the small crowd. Harry might’ve swore he saw Louis blush. Fucking precious. But probably not real.

Harry looked for Eleanor but didn’t see her. He tried (and failed) not to keep his eyes glued to Louis as he dutifully signed playbills and took silly photos. Harry wondered if it would take hours before Louis had greeted every person as thoroughly as he wanted to. Louis also looked freshly showered, which wasn’t particularly fair.

Louis looked like he caught sight of Harry soon enough, or so Harry imagined because a moment later, Louis was leaning back toward a fan and speaking to her. Louis looked up again hesitantly and held the stare and Harry thought _Oh fuck_ and _Why am I so tall_ and then he couldn’t move. He couldn’t move even as he watched Louis excused himself, reassuring the crowd he would return shortly, and walked over to Harry and pulled his face down and kissed him.

The kiss probably lasted hours, who was counting, and Harry’s head spun and part of him told him this was a bad idea and the remainder of him said shut the hell up. He sighed into the kiss and felt like he was on fire. Like in a good way, mostly.

Louis detached himself from Harry and Harry saw every person in line was watching them. There may have been some cheering and applause.

“Oops,” Harry said, pulling his eyes back down to Louis, who was looking firmly up at him.

“Hi,” Louis said simply.

“That was a thing you did.”

Louis nodded solemnly. “I did do a thing.”

“I am mad at you. This was unfair.” Harry frowned and Louis pulled his eyebrows up.

“I should have asked you. I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” Harry said resolutely, though he wasn’t sure that response made sense.

“We should talk.”

Harry nodded then, probably a little stronger than necessary.

“I’ve got to,” Louis trailed off, gesturing to the chattering crowd. “Wait for me?”

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Against my better judgment,” he mumbled to himself as Louis turned to the crowd. A few of them cheered again.

Eleanor, who had appeared from thin air, cheered the hardest and collapsed onto Harry.

“Don’t say it,” Harry said.

“Say what?”

“Any words in the English language.”

“Do you want to wait in the green room?” Zayn asked. Harry hadn’t even seen him; Zayn looked about as baffled as Harry was. Harry nodded dumbly and allowed himself to be let to the green room, which was a little lounge area underneath the stage.

A casual-dressed man looked up from where he sat on the couch. “Is he ready? Oh.”

Harry looked back at Zayn, who said, “This is Harry.”

“Oh!” he said again and jumped off the couch. He clutched Harry’s hand. “I’m Liam, Louis’ manager, it’s a pleasure.”

Zayn pulled Liam close and said something quietly in his ear, which Harry thought was all but certainly about how Louis and Harry just kissed each other like it was going out of style. Liam’s lips pursed a little, but not in anger. Harry stood awkwardly.

“Zayn, _look at this_!” Eleanor shouted from outside the room. Zayn’s eyes widened as he flitted out to stop her from touching something, more than likely.

“Louis talked about you,” Harry said because he didn’t know what to say. Liam didn’t look quite as put together as he pictured with the baggy t-shirt and jeans.

“All terrible, no fun, daddy Liam type things, I’m sure.”

“He said you worry about him.”

Liam’s smile softened a little. “Constantly.”

“So do I,” Harry said and sat down.

Liam nodded and sat as well. “I worry less now. Which is kind of ridiculous because we’re in more trouble now than we were before.”

Harry stiffened. “Is he okay?”

“No, not like. He’s fired his management company about eight months ago and. Well, they’re not very happy. I don’t know if he’s told you anything about?”

Harry nodded but he wasn’t sure how much he wanted to give away of what Louis had told him. He settled on, “They made him miserable.”

“Among other things, yes. He’s happier now, though, I guess. I don’t know how to describe it.”

“That’s so great.” Harry let the warmth he felt radiate up into a smile.

“It is,” Liam said, returning the smile. “He’s very hard on himself. Just sort of in general. But also after. Well.” He made a sort of general gesture to the room, but Harry took it to mean Liam was talking about Harry. “Honestly I’m not even sure he was going to survive it. But he gets stubborn, you know this.” Harry nods gamely. “Anyway these last few months have been kind of a relief.”

“Do you think it’s going to be okay?”

Liam chuckled a little. “No clue, mate. But I think he’s at peace with his life right now. Well, that’s not the phrase he would use. He says he’s _enthusiastic_. I think it’s because—”

“Liam,” Zayn said from the doorway. Harry watched baffled as the two had a silent conversation across the room. “Drinks?” he said at last.

“Right. Harry, again, a pleasure.” Liam clapped his shoulder and Harry smiled. “Lou will know where we are.” Eleanor entered as they exited. She sat on Harry’s lap.

“You should go with them,” Harry said.

“You trying to get rid of me?”

“Yes,” Harry said firmly.

She ducked her head into his neck. “I can’t tell if I should have not pressured you to come here.”

“I will let you know by the end of the night.”

“I love you.” She rose and shuffled to the door.

“Keep your phone by you, yeah?” he called. She nodded and lingered. “I love you, but piss off.”

Harry waited for Louis over an hour. He scanned the bookshelf of shit paperback books and flipped through the television with disinterest. Anything to try to keep him from drowning in anxiety waiting for Louis Tomlinson (!!!!) to turn his life upside down like he usually did. _I was over it_ , he told himself. Was it really a good idea to open up to him again? Did he believe in second chances?

He was sat on the floor, through about three-quarters of a deck building a card castle before he was interrupted.

“The thing you have to know about me is that I’m completely irrational and not at all well-adjusted and as such I’ve spent every night of the last two months of shows hoping I would see you here,” Louis said quietly from where he leaned against the door in an obvious attempt to look cool. He was succeeding, as far as Harry was concerned. “I went through every possible scenario in my head, planning intricate, elaborate apologies and. Nothing ever seemed adequate.”

Harry didn’t know what to say. He settled on a safe question. “You knew I was in New York?”

“I had no idea. Are you here long?”

“I’ve got three more months here before I’m due back in London. Espressoself.”

Louis’ face burst into a grin. “You called them. That’s.” He paused. “I’m glad you stayed to talk. Otherwise that would have made my grand gesture a little embarrassing.”

He took a seat close to Harry but still respecting the distance.

“Were you waiting long?”

“Liam stayed with me a while,” Harry said diplomatically.

Louis gave a little chuckle. “Oh, Liam.”

“He’s not how I pictured.”

“He’s going through a bit of an identity crisis right now. He burned all his button up shirts about six months ago in this giant sort of cleansing bonfire—it’s, I don’t know. Anyway.” Louis shrugged.

They sat in silence for moments. Louis’ eyes threatened to bore a hole into Harry’s face.

“Tell me about the grand gesture,” Harry said.

“It was an apology and a declaration of intention.”

Harry looked at him carefully. “What are your intentions?”

“To kiss you like that as much as humanly possible.”

 _Ah. There he is,_ Harry thought. Harry nodded sagely. “Honorable.”

“I’m trying to do the right thing,” Louis said carefully.

“Also honorable.”

“I am though. I’m working on it and it’s slow and painful. But I’m trying. Because I know I wasn’t trying before. I owe you so much and I know I don’t deserve it but. Fuck, though, I don’t know how you can forgive me.”

Harry pursed his lips. “I’m not really sure what happened. Were you. Embarrassed? Did I embarrass you?”

Louis’ face fell. “God, no, Harry, _no_ , you could never embarrass me. I’m so grateful to know you, you can’t even imagine how I--” He reached a hand out, but then lowered it back to his lap. “Is that what you thought?”

“One of the things, yeah. Like, the pap video, that’s what you were watching in the car. I read the articles and the shit they were saying about you. I felt like. You didn’t want to be associated with any of it. All you said was I can’t do it. I don’t know what I was supposed to think.”

“I’m so sorry, Harry,” he said quietly.

“It would have been nice if you had called me.”

Louis flicked his eyes away from Harry for the first time. “I didn’t want to make it worse. I was really scared.”

“So you kept saying.”

“It was just a big thing. I liked you so much and so fast, and I felt it, like, deep, like cliché, film-like levels of deepness with like big orchestral swellings and fireworks and that doesn’t happen to me. I’ve done nothing to deserve that and I didn’t know how to handle that. It was a big step, and I wasn’t prepared for it.”

“It didn’t have to be a big thing. I didn’t know what we were doing either.”

“I don’t know how to be with someone else,” Louis said helplessly.

“We could have worked it out together. Slowly. I would have waited for you to figure it out.” Pressure seemed to lift from Harry’s chest as he released all of the things he wanted to say to Louis since he had seen him last. Also from hearing once more how far Louis had been gone for him, that part was nice too.

Louis scowled. “That’s not fair to you.”

Harry shrugged. “If it made you happy.”

“You can’t sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of mine, Harry. That’s not healthy. I mean. We didn’t even know each other a week. You didn’t even know if I was _worth it_.”

“I said slowly.” Harry made a face. “And you _are_ worth it, you prat.”

Louis sighed, stopping Harry before he effectively launched into a tirade about Louis’ worth. “It’s absolutely fucking terrifying how selfless you are. That’s part of why I like you so much and part of why I worry about you. Because you’re too busy looking after everyone else to stop and think about getting what you want. That’s a thing you do, do you realize that? Like every time I say _well what about you, Harry_ , it seems like the thought never even crossed your mind. That’s not right. Honestly.

“I’m very sorry I left. But. I want to protect you. Because my life is full of so much bullshit and it just isn’t fair to you to drag you through it. And you would have done it too, only because I asked you to, and you would be miserable and you would grin and bear it because you would only be concerned with giving me what I want.”

Harry stared, unsure of how to process. “I don’t understand. You just kissed me in front of like a giant crowd strangers and then came in here and told me you want to kiss me a lot more. And now you sound like you don’t want to fix things? I’m getting a lot of mixed signals here, Lou.”

“I know. I just.” Louis dragged his hands through his hair as he composed his thoughts. “I’m at war with myself and it’s so fucking stupid, I can’t even believe I just said that, _I’m at war with myself, god_. But I want to be selfish and I want you. But I also feel like I can’t ask you to throw yourself to the fucking wolves and make yourself unhappy.”

“I can handle myself,” Harry said, somewhat grumpily.

Louis’ face scrunched up. “The look on your face when that piece of shit came after you. Every time I saw it, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. And I had that look of brokenness from four fucking camera angles. It haunted me. I had done that to you, I had given you reason to be miserable and if you were with me, Harry, the shit would never stop. I can’t do that. I can’t ask you to become like me.”

“You didn’t do anything. It was my first time and I understand what it’s like. I would have gotten used to that kind of thing.”

“What if I don’t want you to get used to it?”

Harry understood where Louis was coming from, but Harry had already had somewhat of a thick skin. He was used to taunting and teasing and name-calling from when he was younger. It was just quite another thing for a grown man to say those things. “That’s not your decision to make for me. You have to trust me. Because it’s not about them. They don’t even factor in. It’s about you and me. You know? Fuck the rest of them.”

“I know. You’re strong.”

“So are you,” Harry said honestly. Louis shook his head and gave a humorless laugh.

“Why aren’t you like screaming at me?” Louis asked, deflecting in that way Harry didn’t like. “It’s kind of worse that you’re being so bloody level. Throw something.”

“Why would I do that?” Harry sighed exasperated.

“Because I made a huge mistake and I made both of us miserable and it took me almost a year to try to make it right.”

“I don’t want to scream at you.”

“Why not? I did something wrong. You should stick up for yourself. You never stick up for yourself, Harry, it drives me _mad_. Listen. To. Me. You can’t let people use you like a doormat just because you want them to be happy, even if it means you’re sacrificing your own comfort.”

There it was again. Harry scowled but he knew where he stood at last. “Okay. Fine. I’m not happy that you left without talking to me. It really made me angry and anxious and I felt stupid. But honestly, I worked through it. I was disappointed in you and disappointed in myself. And I didn’t come here tonight hoping you’d sweep me off my feet—as if you could.”

Louis narrowed his eyes but Harry soldiered on, rising to his feet. “I was hurt because it didn’t seem like you trusted me with yourself. And not even on a romantic level, although obviously I was very much in favor of the romantic level, but like. We were friends, Lou. I know you said you didn’t really know how to be friends, but like, do a Google search on how to be a friend, and I’m pretty sure trusting someone is really high up on the list. And I thought you had.”

“I trust you, honestly. I didn’t trust myself, Harry, I’m so sor—”

“Just wait, please. You wanted it, you’re getting it. No talking. Thing is. You say you’re trying. But. You’re really just still looking for an excuse not to be happy, aren’t you?” Louis nodded guiltily.

“Do you want me to be happy?” Harry asked. Louis nodded.

“Then do as I say. I’m happy when you’re happy. You are _allowed_ to be happy. And I’m not just saying this because it’s what you want. It’s because I want it. Do you want this?” Louis gave an especially rigorous nod.

“Don’t run away from me. Trust me. Do you like me?” It seemed to pain Louis not to speak but he still respectfully nodded.

“Good. I still like you. I respect that you’re trying to do the right thing. I’ve seen it. But. Don’t pressure yourself into figuring us out right now. We don’t have to solve all of our problems and answer all of our questions and be the end-all, be-all of each other’s lives _right now_ , so long as we promise to both work honestly and work together. We are going to talk so much you’re going to get sick of it. We will make so many mistakes, but it’ll be okay because we’re going to talk about it. Because you know now, right? How dangerous it is to keep this shit bottled up inside of you?” Louis nodded hopefully. Harry smiled and took a few breaths to recover.

“Also kiss me again, if you would,” Harry said finally. Louis approached him slowly. “Mind the castle,” Harry warned. Louis stepped all over the castle, crushing it very carefully, with narrowed eyes. He pushed Harry down onto the couch and lowered himself onto Harry. Without a moment’s hesitation, they collapsed desperately into each other.

“I really like you,” Louis breathed between a kiss. “I will keep working on doing the right thing, I swear. Just. Thank you.”

“I like you too.” Harry pulled him back in. Harry was right, Louis Tomlinson was _so_ worth it. Mostly for the kissing, but also for like his personality or something.

Harry and Louis exited the theatre together through the stage door, which was now free of fans. Louis put a gentle hand to Harry’s back in that exact spot Harry liked best. Harry snaked his arm up around to Louis’ shoulder and leaned into him. They fit.

Louis led them up 8th Ave in a comfortable silence that Harry eventually broke.

“Are you still scared?”

Louis smiled. “Will you date me, Harold Styles?”

“Might as well,” Harry said with a casual shrug.

Louis punched his arm.

“Ouch. You didn’t answer my question,” Harry pointed out.

“I’m scared of large spiders, not the small ones, those are fine, but the rather large ones. I’m scared my teeth will fall out. I’m scared of the tiny dog that Liam just got.” Louis tightened around Harry a little more. “I’m scared of dying. I’m scared the girls have grown up not knowing who I am. I’m scared of the sound my phone makes when it gets an email, but I don’t know how to change it. But you, Harold Styles, I will never be scared of. Henceforth. Thus shall I make a proclamation to the world.”

“Make it so.”

“I AM NOT AFRAID OF HARRY STYLES,” he shouted up into the night. It’s a credit to New York that nobody seemed to even look their way. “IN FACT I FIND HIM QUITE REASSURING EVEN.”

They collapsed into manly giggles. Louis pressed a kiss to Harry’s neck.

“All right, then, you can take me to dinner,” Harry conceded.

“Excellent. Thank you. Dinner would make me very _enthusiastic_.”

Harry rolled his eyes, stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, and pulled Louis into the second best kiss of Harry’s life so far.

He would leave first open for the future.

\-------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to take a second and thank literally every person who read this and liked it and took the time to leave kudos and incredibly wonderfully kind comments. Especially thanks to those of you who commented from the very start--you made me feel like I wasn't an idiot. It's given me life force. I'm thankful for you and I hope this has been a good reading experience and all that!  
> I like you! If you need to find me and shout at me for any reason, I've got a side blog for my fic inspirations: dramaturgically-correct.tumblr.com!


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